Mountain Vista Health Park

On top of receiving an elite overall grade, this nursing home also received an A+ inspection rating. This is based on the facility's recent government inspections. An A+ in this area is one of the highest complements we can offer a nursing home. Our inspection grades weigh several factors found on a nursing home's inspection report. One key criteria we weigh heavily is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Places with higher scores in this category generally have very few of these severe deficiencies. This place received 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none were considered to be severe. This tells you that the government inspectors didn't consider any of the deficiencies an imminent risk to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Compounding its first-rate achievements in other areas, we gave this nursing home a score of A for its long-term care score. Facilities that do well in long-term care typically are well-staffed and offer extensive hands on care to patients. After assessing the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination record. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients for pneumonia. Vaccines are critical to keeping patients healthy. Lastly, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

Another one of this facility's impressive category grades came in the area of nursing care. We awarded them one of our better scores in that area, with a grade of B+. When calculating a facility's nursing score, we consider the quantity of hours nurses are caring for patients and the level of licensure of those nurses. This nursing home provides 0.4 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 facility has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can generally be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

The last category we graded ended up being this nursing home's worst category. However, even in its worst category we still awarded it a respectable grade of C in our short-term care category. Our short-term care grade is often used to score a facility's rehabilitation services. In order to offer quality rehabilitation services, facilities generally need to have higher levels of skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing includes registered nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists and other highly trained professionals. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not all nursing homes employs these types of nurses. However, based on the information this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last statistic we looked at in this area is the percentage of residents who were able to leave the nursing home and return to the community. We discovered that just 4 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home, which is below average.