Sunset Home

While this nursing home's overall score was as bad as it gets, it actually fared pretty well in the category of inspections. In fact, we awarded it a grade of B+ for that area, which is one of our better scores. Our inspection scores are based on items found on the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Deficiencies are an important thing to look for on these inspections. You should especially avoid nursing homes with severe deficiencies associated with endangerment of patients. This place was hit with 5 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered to be major deficiencies. This tells you that CMS didn't deem any of these deficiencies an immediate risk to resident safety or health. A few minor deficiencies are not necessarily the end of the world.

We were also stunned to learn that this nursing home earned a solid long-term care score in our assessment. We awarded it a grade of C in that category. Our long-term care ratings are based in part on the nursing home's quantity of nursing care. This includes a broad range of personal care services, ranging from assistance with activities of daily living to routine healthcare services. One of the criteria we considered on top of nursing hours is vaccines. We were a bit bothered by the fact that this facility administered the pneumonia vaccine to just 88.414635 percent of its patients. Fortunately, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had only 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

We also wanted to point out that this nursing home received an F for its nursing grade. Our nursing score analyzes the nursing home's nurse staffing levels. We factor in both the levels of licensure of those nurses as well as the amount of time spent with patients. This nursing home provides 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a much lower figure than we are used to seeing. Lastly, we also looked at some nursing quality-based metrics in calculating our nursing grades. This place performed well in terms of minimizing its residents' pressure ulcers and major falls.

The final category we assessed was short-term care. Unfortunately, we gave it a lowly F for this area, which is a poor score. Our short-term care grades are important for residents seeking rehabilitation. Rehabilitation usually mandates higher levels of highly-skilled nursing. This includes a vast scope of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other forms of therapy. Not surprisingly, we found that this nursing home provides far less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than the average facility. The last metric we considered in this area is the number of residents who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We discovered that just 0 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home, which is well below average. The combination of these subpar metrics doomed this facility's short-term care score.