Shadow Hills Conv. Hospital

In addition to having a decent overall grade, we also wanted to point out that this facility received favorable nursing marks this year. We gave them one of our better scores in that area, with a grade of B+. This proved to be the facility's top score. There are a host of datapoints included in this grade. Most of these criteria reflect the quantity and quality of nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics and this facility excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any nursing home California in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as having a protocol of turning a patient even once per day.

This nursing home's inspection grade also was better than its overall grade. Due to a quality inspection report this year, it earned one of our better scores in that area with a B. Perhaps the most important factor we look at in determining our inspection ratings is deficiencies. Deficiencies are found on a facility's recent inspection reports. Nursing homes with better scores in this category typically dodged the more severe deficiencies involving things like patient abuse. This nursing home received 5 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe. This tells you that CMS did not consider any of the deficiencies to pose an immediate risk to patient health or safety. A couple minor deficiencies shouldn't stop you from considering a nursing home.

We also gave this nursing home a middle of the pack score in the category of long-term care, where we awarded it a grade of C. In forming our long-term care grades, we quantify the facility's personal care services. After we finished assessing the amount of care provided by nurses, we next considered the nursing home's vaccination data. Candidly, we were a bit bothered by the fact that this facility vaccinated only 72.65306 percent of its residents against pneumonia. On a more positive note, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

The last area we analyzed was short-term care. This nursing home was given a C in this area. Our short-term care scores are considered to be most important for people requiring a nursing home for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation usually requires additional highly-skilled nursing. This means not just nursing, but also physical and speech therapy, as well as other forms of therapy. Unfortunately, we found that this place provided fewer registered nurse and physical therapist hours per resident than most other facilities. The more important thing is determining what bearing this had on quality of care. Lastly, we assessed the percentage of residents who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 4.3 percent of this facility's patients returned home. At most facilities, closer to half of their residents are able to return home so this figure is below average.