The Pillars of North County Health & Rehab Center

Even though we didn't rate this facility favorably overall, we want to point out its relatively favorable short-term care rating. We awarded it a respectable grade of B in this area. Our short-term care ratings are based on a nursing home's quantity of skilled nursing services. This includes a wide range of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, in addition to other forms of therapy. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like this facility submitted registered nurse or physical therapist staffing data. Finally, we looked at the percentage of patients who were able to return home from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.

We actually gave this nursing home a very solid grade in the area of inspections as well. In fact, we awarded it a B- in this category. This is better than many facilities in this category. Our inspection grades are based on several pieces of information found on the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Deficiencies are a key thing to look for on these inspections. Severe deficiencies indicate a threat to resident safety. This place received 3 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none were considered to be severe. This indicates that the inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies to be an imminent threat to patient health or safety. A few minor deficiencies aren't necessarily the end of the world.

This nursing home actually received a decent grade in the area of nursing as well. We awarded it a grade of C for that category, which is not a bad score. Our nursing grade looks at the facility's level of nurse staffing. We weigh both the levels of training of the nurses as well as the quantity of hours spent with residents. This facility provided just 0.2 hours of nursing care per patient on a daily basis. This figure is far below the national average. Despite having low quantities of nursing care, this nursing home surprisingly excelled in some of the quality measures we looked at. It performed well in terms of minimizing its residents' major falls and pressure ulcers. Many consider these areas to be measures of the quality of nursing care. In many cases, the quality of nursing care is every bit as important as the number of hours of care offered.

Switching gears to the next area, this nursing home did not fare well in this category either. Due to an abysmal grade of F in long-term care, this is about as terrible as it gets. For patients seeking a permanent place to live as opposed to skilled nursing, long-term care is an important category. One of the criteria we considered after nurse's aid hours is vaccinations. Fortunately, this nursing home administered the pneumonia vaccination to 97.63314 percent of its patients. To our surprise, this facility also keeps its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days. Sadly, some of its other scores in the category weren't as favorable as these.