Sierra Winds

In addition to performing well overall, this nursing home also earned a nearly flawless inspection report. Consequently, it received one of our best scores in that category with an A+. These inspection grades weigh several factors, including deficiencies, substantiated complaints and federal fines. You can learn more about each of these items by reviewing copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. While this nursing home had some deficiencies on its government inspection report, none of them were serious based on CMS' deficiency scale. Keep in mind that deficiency-free inspections are rare in this industry.

Contributing to its superb profile, this nursing home also performed well in our short-term care category. In fact, we awarded it a score of A for that area. Our short-term care scores are considered to be more meaningful for patients in need of a nursing home for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation usually utilizes more highly-skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing includes not only nursing, but also physical and speech therapy, as well as other variations of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not all facilities employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Lastly, we considered the number of residents that who were able to eventually return home from this facility. We found that 6.2 percent of this nursing home's patients were able to return home.

Adding to its strong resume, this facility also received an excellent nursing score, with a grade of A-. Our nursing score weighs quite a few factors, but the main consideration is the number of nurse hours spent with patients. This nursing home averages 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This facility performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a nursing home has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can often be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

Turning to the fourth area, this nursing home was awarded an acceptable long-term care score. While this wasn't nearly as strong as some of its other category grades, this is still not a terrible score. For prospective patients in need of a permanent residence as opposed to rehabilitation, long-term care grades are a key measure. Once we looked at the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we then looked at the facility's vaccination data. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that this facility provided vaccination data. Lastly, this facility excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.