Sonterra Health Center
18514 Sonterra Place, San Antonio TX 78258 · (210) 545-4800 · 81.77% estimated occupancy 1Updated: Aug 1, 2020 · By Nick Reese
Sonterra Health Center is located in the large metropolitan area of San Antonio, Texas. With an overall grade of B-, this looks like a solid nursing home. If you take a look at the other options in San Antonio, we hope you will find this facility to be a better option than most of the facilities in the city. This city simply does not have a great selection of nursing homes. We were also pleased to find that this facility received consistently decent grades in all of our categories. Additional information about these categories can be found below.
Additional Details:
Accepts Medicare 1 :
Accepts Medicaid 1 : 124 Beds
CCRC :
For profit - Corporation
Resident Council:
Family Council:
Medical Staff Hours Per Patient (2019)
Facility Inspections
This facility received a solid overall grade as described above, but we really wanted to emphasize its nearly flawless health inspection reports in recent years. We gave them an impressive grade of A- in this category. Inspection ratings take several factors into consideration, including deficiencies and substantiated complaints. You can find more information about each of these factors by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. Fortunately, although this facility had some minor dings on its government inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means that the government inspectors didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. The fact that none of the deficiencies were severe made us feel better about this inspection report.
Short-term Care Quality
Another one of this nursing home's more impressive category grades was in the area of short-term care. In that area, we awarded this facility a grade of B. It actually fared better than most facilities in this area. In determining our short-term care ratings, we look at the nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. The objective is to devise a tool for sizing up the rehabilitation services of different facilities. One reason for this facility's strong score in this category is that it provides a greater volume of physical therapist hours to its residents than the average nursing home. Finally, we looked at the percentage of patients that eventually returned home from this facility. On top of excelling in the area of physical therapy hours, we found that it fared as well as just about any facility in the country with 60.9 percent of its residents returning home. Most facilities are below 50 percent in this metric.
Nurse Quality
This facility's next best category grade came in the area of nursing. In that category, we gave this nursing home a grade of B-. The nursing grade assesses quite a few subcategories, however, the main one is the quantity of nurse hours per patient per week. This facility provides only 3.3 hours of nursing care per patient on a daily basis. This is a somewhat alarming figure as it is well below average. Finally, we also looked at some nursing quality measures. Although this nursing home got dinged a bit for nursing hours, it excelled in a few of these quality-based metrics. With less than five percent of its residents suffering from pressure ulcers, it performed remarkably well in this metric. This can be a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can typically be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as having a system of turning patients at least once a day.
Long-term Care Quality
Our last category is long-term care, in which we awarded this facility a C in that category. In the category of long-term care, we analyze the amount of care provided by a facility, as opposed to more healthcare-oriented services. After assessing the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we then looked at the nursing home's vaccination records. We were optimistic to discover that this facility vaccinated 99.26199 percent of its residents for pneumonia. This nursing home was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 1.17 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a substantially lower hospitalization rate than most nursing homes.
Overall Rating Over Time
Compared to national and state averages across all facilities.
Sonterra Health Center Quality Metrics
Minimizes Pressure Ulcers
This datapoint is an indication of the percent of long-term care patients who developed new or worsened pressure ulcers. We've found that pressure ulcers are a reliable barometer of nursing care quality.
Percent of Patients with Pressure Ulcers
Lower is Better
Minimizes Serious Falls
This metric tells you the percentage of long-term residents who have experienced a fall leading to serious injury. Falls can happen for a variety of reasons, but excessive numbers of falls may be an indicator of poor nursing care.
Percent of Patients with Serious Falls
Lower is Better
Minimizes Urinary Tract Infections
This indicates the percent of residents who sustained a urinary tract infection. These infections are linked to poorer hygiene.
Percent of Patients with UTIs
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Psychotic Medication
This is the percentage of residents who were given antipsychotic drugs. These drugs may be used to treat a variety of conditions, including cognitive disorders.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Anxiety Medication
This datapoint is a measure of the percent of long-term residents taking antianxiety drugs.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Managing Depression Among Residents
Measures the percent of long-term patients who are demonstrating symptoms of depression. Some argue that this is a measure of quality of life.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriate Vaccine Usage
This is the percentage of residents that were administered the pneumonia and flu vaccines. High vaccination rates should be the norm at this point.
Percent of Patients
Higher is Better
Residents Maintain Autonomy
This datapoint measures the percent of long-term patients that required additional assistance with activities of daily living over time. ADL's include activities such as moving around and bathing.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Ability to Keep Residents Mobile
This datapoint is a measure of the percentage of long-term patients that retained mobility levels.
Percentage of Residents
Higher is Better
Hospitalizations
This metric is a measure of the number of times residents are hospitalized per thousand days of patient care. Minimizing hospitalizations is key to the physical health of nursing home residents.
Hospitalizations per 1,000 resident days
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: Rehospitalizations
This tells you the number of times residents are rehospitalized per thousand days of short-term patient care. There is typically a correlation between avoiding hospitalizations and a nursing home's quality of short-term rehabilitation.
Percentage of Residents Rehospitalized
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: ER Visits
This datapoint is a measure of the number of times residents are sent to the emergency room per thousand days of short-term care. Staying out of the emergency room is one way to measure patient care during rehabilitation.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: Facilitates Functional Improvement
This is a measure of the percentage of short-term care patients who saw functional improvements, such as enhanced ability to perform activities of daily living. Many in the industry argue that this is a reasonable measure of a nursing home's rehabilitation performance.
Percentage of Resident
Higher is Better