Haven of Saguaro Valley

In addition to having a decent overall grade, we also wanted to note that this facility received favorable nursing marks this year. We awarded them one of our better scores in that area, with a B+. This proved to be the facility's top score. We weighed the licensure of nurses working for the nursing home, as well as the number of hours the nurses spent with residents, in calculating our score in this area. This nursing home averages 0.3 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.

Another one of this facility's better category grades was in the area of short-term care. In that category, we awarded this facility a grade of B. In computing these short-term care ratings, we analyze the facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. Our objective is to devise a scale for comparing the rehabilitation services of nursing homes. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. However, according to the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Finally, we considered the percentage of residents who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this facility's patients returned home.

It should also be noted that this nursing home's inspection score was strong as well. In fact, we awarded it a B for its inspection reports, which is one of our better scores. Our inspection scores are tied to pieces of information located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places that excel in this category have very few deficiencies on their reports. Most importantly, these places should not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with endangerment of patients. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Even some of the best nursing homes receive an occasional ding on their inspection report.

The final category we assessed is long-term care, ended up being this facility's worst category. We awarded this nursing home a D in this area. This was one of just a few weak links on an otherwise impressive report card. Nursing homes that don't fare well in long-term care typically are not as well-staffed and are lagging in some of the areas of routine healthcare services we assessed. On top of assessing the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. Unfortunately, we weren't able to locate this place's vaccination data. Surprisingly, this facility was actually able to limit hospitalizations. With only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, this nursing home has fewer hospitalizations than most nursing homes. This was its best score in this category.