Assisted Living La Posada

On top of faring well overall, this nursing home also received nearly flawless government inspections. Therefore, it earned one of our highest scores in that category with an A+. Arguably the most significant factor we consider in calculating our inspection scores is deficiencies. Deficiencies are found on a facility's recent inspection reports. Places with better scores in this category most likely dodged the most severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. While this nursing home had a few minor dings on its government inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones found in categories G through L. This means CMS didn't deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This facility also received an A+ for its short-term care score. In the category of short-term care, we attempt to qualify measures of a facility's rehabilitation services. We analyze a nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as the ones performed by registered nurses and physical, occupational and other therapists. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not all nursing homes employs these skilled professionals. However, based on the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final measure we looked at in this area is the percentage of patients that ultimately were able to return home from the facility. We found that 6.9 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.

Among its many impressive grades, this facility received an excellent nursing grade. In fact, we gave it a grade of A- in that category. In computing our nursing ratings, we factor in both nursing hours and the training levels of those nurses. This nursing home provides 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 place 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 many times be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

The last area we looked at was long-term care, where this facility received an A-. This wrapped up a very impressive report card. Not many facilities earned an A- or higher in all four categories. Long-term care ratings in this range generally require both 24/7 care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine medical care. In addition to assessing the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its patients, which is far higher than most nursing homes. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.