Linda Valley Care Center

One of the reasons this facility performed well overall is it excelled in the area of inspections, with a B+ in that area. It outperformed most facilities in this category. Inspection grades account for several factors included in a nursing home's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we consider is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Nursing homes with higher grades in this category generally have very few of these severe deficiencies. Although this facility had a few deficiencies on its inspection report, none of them were serious based on CMS' deficiency scale. A few relatively minor deficiencies aren't something to panic about.

Contributing to its profile, this facility also received a score of B+ for its long-term care rating. This is a well above average grade in this area. Facilities that excel in this category tend to be well-staffed and provide extensive hands on care to patients. One of the statistics we considered on top of nursing hours was vaccines. This facility provided the pneumonia vaccination to 98.08613 percent of its patients. Vaccination is a great way to avoid unnecessary deaths and hospitalizations for the nursing home population. Finally, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had only 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

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. There are a host of subcategories included in this category. Many of the criteria are tied to nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality-based metrics and this nursing home excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any facility the nation in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as by having a policy of moving residents at least once a day.

The final area we rated was short-term care. We awarded this nursing home a grade of B- in that area. In computing our short-term care scores, we analyze a facility's levels of highly skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists speech therapists and other highly skilled individuals. This score is frequently a reliable assessment of the facility's ability to rehabilitate patients. We were not able to find information about this nursing home's registered nurse or physical therapy staffing. Finally, we looked at the percentage of residents that who were able to eventually return home from this nursing home. We found that 5.8 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home. This figure was actually well below the national average.