Life Care Center of Paradise Valley

While we gave this place a poor overall grade, we actually gave it a somewhat respectable score in the category of inspections, where we gave it a B-. This was quite a bit better than its other categories. We believe that one of the most important factors in evaluating an inspection report is deficiencies. In this regard, we especially focus on the severity of the deficiencies. While this nursing home had a few minor dings on its report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones found in categories G through L. This tells you the inspectors didn't deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Finally, CMS flagged this nursing home for possible abuse or neglect. This is not what you want to see. We advise you to direct your search elsewhere.

We also awarded this facility a grade of B- for our nursing rating. Nursing ratings are largely associated with a nursing home's nurse staffing. This place provides only 0.4 hours of nursing care per patient per day. This is a somewhat uninspiring figure which is well below the national average. Lastly, nursing scores also consider quality-based metrics, such as avoiding major falls. Despite not having the highest total nursing hours, this nursing home actually performed admirably in the metric of preventing major falls. This is typically a good indicator that a nursing home has sufficient quality controls in place. Some falls can be avoided if a facility provides enough nurses to assist its patients.

We also gave this nursing home a respectable score in the area of short-term care, where we awarded it a B-. Our short-term care scores are believed to be more important for those requiring rehabilitation services. Rehabilitation usually requires additional skilled nursing services. This includes not just nursing, but also physical and speech therapy, as well as other types of therapy. In this facility's case, we were surprised to learn that it actually provides less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than a typical facility. The last measure we considered in this area is the number of patients who ultimately returned home from the nursing home. We found that just 6.2 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home.

Switching gears to our fourth category, we gave this nursing home a D in long-term care. This is the nursing home's weakest category rating. For patients looking for a permanent residence as opposed to rehabilitation, long-term care grades are very important. One of the factors we considered in addition to nursing hours was vaccines. Fortunately, this facility administered the pneumonia vaccination to 95.37815 percent of its residents. Surprisingly, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. With only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, this nursing home had less hospitalizations than many nursing homes. Unfortunately, some of its other scores in this category weren't as favorable as these.