Good Samaritan Society - Valley Vista

Part of the reason this nursing home performed well overall is that it fared well in the category of inspections, with a grade of B+ in that category. It outperformed most nursing homes in this category. Inspection scores account for several factors found on a nursing home's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we weigh heavily is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with better grades in this area tend to have very few severe deficiencies. While this place had some minor dings on its government inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you the inspectors did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. The fact that the deficiencies were relatively minor leaves us less concerned with this inspection report.

In addition, this facility also received favorable short-term care scores in our assessment. In fact, we awarded them one of our better scores in that area, with a score of B. In determining our short-term care scores, we analyze a facility's levels of highly skilled nursing services, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists speech therapists and other licensed professionals. This area is more often than not a useful measure of a nursing home's rehabilitation services. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. However, according to the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last item we considered in this area is the number of patients who eventually returned home from the facility. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.

Adding to its profile, this facility also earned a grade of B for its nursing rating. This is a well above average score in this category. The nursing rating analyzes several factors, many of which are associated with levels of nurse staffing. This particular nursing home provided 0.4 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 when it comes to avoiding pressure ulcers and major falls. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

Our last category is long-term care, in which we gave this facility a grade of B- in this category. Long-term care grades are based on the facility's volume of nursing care. This means a vast scope of personal care services, ranging from help with activities of daily living to routine healthcare services. After we finished looking at the quantity of care provided by nurses, we then looked at the nursing home's vaccination statistics. We were optimistic to learn that this nursing home vaccinates 94.77124 percent of its patients against pneumonia. Finally, this facility was also able to limit hospitalizations. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.