Linda Valley Care Center

Linda Valley Care Center is one of only three available facilities in Loma Linda, California. This is a good nursing home with a B overall. This was right in line with the city grade in Loma Linda. Based on our ratings, this nursing home ought to meet the needs of most people. The best part of this facility's strong report card is its inspection rating. Inspection reports are discussed in the next paragraph

In addition to performing well in its overall grade, this facility performed at an even higher level in the area of inspections. In fact, it received a nearly flawless inspection report this year. As a result, it received one of our highest grades in that category with a score of A-. Inspection ratings are based on several datapoints found on the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Nursing homes that score well in this area typically have very few deficiencies on those reports. Most importantly, these facilities generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with risks to patient safety. Fortunately, although this nursing home had a few minor dings on its inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are labeled as categories G through L. This tells you the government inspectors didn't deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. We should point out that deficiency-free inspection reports are uncommon in the industry.

Building on its impressive profile, this facility also excelled in the category of nursing. We gave it a grade of B for that category. Nursing grades are largely associated with a facility's nurse staffing. This particular nursing home provided 3.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This facility performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a place has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can typically be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

Turning to another strength for this facility, we gave them one of our higher grades in our long-term care category as well, with a B. Nursing homes that excel in long-term care tend to be well-staffed and provide extensive hands on care to residents. In addition to looking at the quantity of care provided by nurses and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility gave the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients. Vaccines are critical to keeping patients healthy. Finally, we looked at the nursing home's number of hospitalizations. We found that this place had 2.66 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days.

Turning to the final area, this facility received a grade of B- for short-term care, which is generally a respectable score. In crafting these short-term care grades, we analyze the facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. Our purpose is to formulate a scale for sizing up the rehabilitation services of nursing homes. We were pleased to find that this nursing home employs both registered nurses and physical therapists. The same can't be said for all nursing homes. The final datapoint we considered in this area is the number of residents that were able to return home from the nursing home. We found that it performed better than most nursing homes in this area with 53.6 percent of its residents returning home. At most facilities, fewer than half of their short-term residents are able to return home.