Sun Health La Loma Care Center

In addition to receiving a great overall grade, this nursing home received an A+ for nursing. Our nursing rating features several subcategories. The most important one is the amount of time nurses spent with patients. This nursing home provides an incredible 6.3 hours of nursing care per resident each day. Out of that total, many of the hours were provided by registered nurses, which is one of the most highly highly trained levels of nurses. On top of providing high levels of nursing care, this facility was also above average in each of the major quality-based metrics we looked at in this category. By way of illustration, it performed well in terms of minimizing its residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. These datapoints are generally good indicators of the quality of nursing care a nursing home offers.

This top notch facility also was superb in the category of short-term care, where we awarded it a score of A+. Very few nursing homes performed better in this category. In forming our short-term care ratings, we assess the nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, speech therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. Our purpose is to devise a scale for sizing up the rehabilitation services of various nursing homes. Remarkably, this nursing home provides about 50% more services from physical therapists and registered nurses than most nursing homes we looked at. This is a very favorable sign. Lastly, we looked at the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that it outperformed the vast majority of facilities in this area with 66.9 percent of its residents returning home. This is a significantly higher rate than most nursing homes.

This facility has received near flawless health inspections in recent years. We awarded them an impressive grade of A in this category. Our inspection grades weigh a host of factors found on a facility's inspection report. One key criteria we rely on is the number and severity of deficiencies. Nursing homes with better grades in this area usually have few severe deficiencies. This facility received 3 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none were considered to be severe. This tells you that CMS didn't consider any of these deficiencies to cause an immediate threat to resident safety or health. The fact that the deficiencies were relatively minor leaves us less concerned with this inspection report.

The next category we graded is long-term care, where this nursing home was awarded a grade of B. Even though this is its least impressive category grade, this is nevertheless an impressive rating. Long-term care scores of this caliber generally require both around the clock care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine medical care. One of the statistics we considered on top of this facility's impressive nursing hours was vaccinations. This facility provided the pneumonia vaccine to 100 percent of its patients. Vaccines are a great way to avoid unnecessary deaths and hospitalizations for seniors. Lastly, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.