Apple Valley Post Acute Center

One of the reasons this turned out to be a quality facility is that it received a very impressive inspection rating. Inspections turned out to be its best category grade. In this category, we awarded it an A-. Perhaps the most significant factor we look at in calculating our inspection ratings is deficiencies. Deficiencies are found on a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Nursing homes with better grades in this category most likely dodged the more severe deficiencies involving health risks or even death. Fortunately, although this nursing home had a few minor dings on its inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you that the inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. The fact that none of the deficiencies were severe made us feel better about this inspection report.

Among this nursing home's other achievements is its top-shelf long-term care grade. It received one of our more impressive scores in that area, with a score of A-. When facilities receive a score in this range in long-term care it typically means it has plenty of staff and is an overall good place to reside on a permanent basis. After looking at the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we then looked at the nursing home's vaccination data. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents for pneumonia, which is far higher than the average nursing home. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

This facility received a very good nursing grade this year as well. It received one of our better scores in that category with a grade of B. The nursing score consists of many components, most of which are tied to quantities of nurse staffing. This facility provided 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, we also looked at some nursing quality measures in determining our nursing grades. This facility performed very well in the area of avoiding pressure ulcers and major falls. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

The last category we scored is short-term care. For that category, we awarded this nursing home a grade of B-. Short-term care grades are generally employed to score a nursing home's rehabilitation services. In order to provide highly rated rehabilitation services, nursing homes generally must provide higher levels of skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes registered nurses, physical therapists, speech therapists and other licensed professionals. Unfortunately, we were not able to find information about this nursing home's registered nurse or physical therapy staffing. The final item we assessed in this category is the number of patients that eventually returned home from the nursing home. We found that just 4.7 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home.