Tahoe Forest Hospital D/P Snf

With an address in Truckee, California, Tahoe Forest Hospital D/P Snf is the sole nursing home we were able to find in the city. This turns out to be a grade A facility, which is a high-end grade. We were so impressed with this nursing home that we ranked it in the top 20 percent of all nursing homes in the country. If you scroll down, you can see this place's category grades, which are also strong.

We also wanted to emphasize the fact that this facility excelled in our nursing rating. We awarded them an impressive grade of A+ in this category. There are many criteria included in this grade. Most of the subcategories reflect the quantity of nurse staffing. This facility provided 4.8 hours of nursing care per resident per day, which is among the highest totals in the country. A significant percentage of those hours were provided by registered nurses, which are one of the most skilled levels of nurses. We were really impressed by both of these figures. On top of providing high levels of care, this facility also excelled in the quality measures we assessed. For example, it performed as well as any facility in the country in terms of minimizing its residents' major falls and pressure ulcers. We look at these areas as reliable indicators of the quality of nursing care being provided.

Among its many elite scores, this nursing home received a top-shelf short-term care grade. In fact, we gave it a grade of A in this category. Our short-term care ratings are arguably more meaningful for those requiring rehabilitation from their nursing home. Rehabilitation usually utilizes higher levels of skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes not just nursing, but also physical and speech therapy, as well as other forms of therapy. When we assessed this facility's nursing hours, we found it offered substantially more care from registered nurses than most nursing homes. The last item we assessed in this category is the percentage of patients who were able to return home from the nursing home. We found that it fared better than most nursing homes in this area with 49.7 percent of its patients returning home. Unfortunately, at most nursing homes, fewer than half of their short-stay residents are able to return home.

Adding to its impressive category grades, this facility also excelled in the area of inspections, where it received a grade of A. Few nursing homes performed better in this area. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in calculating these inspection grades. One critical factor is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of these deficiencies is usually more important than the number of deficiencies, as some of these are quite insignificant. Fortunately, although this nursing home had some minor dings on its report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those found in categories G through L. This means that CMS did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. A few minor deficiencies are not necessarily the end of the world.

The final category we looked at was long-term care. This nursing home received an impressive nursing score in our assessment, with a grade of B. Although this wasn't nearly as impressive as many of its other scores, this remains one of our stronger scores in this area. Facilities that receive this type of score in this category tend to provide consistent around the clock care to ensure residents are kept in good health. In addition to very favorable nursing hour statistics, this nursing home's vaccination data is top notch also. Indeed, this nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its patients against pneumonia. This combination proved to be successful as this facility keeps its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0.34 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.