Paradise Valley Health Care

We also found that this facility excelled in our short-term care rating. We awarded them an impressive grade of A+ in this category. In the category of short-term care, we endeavor to assess measures of a nursing home's rehabilitation services. We look at a facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses and various therapists. Fortunately, it appear that this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not all facilities employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, according to the data this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last statistic we looked at in this category is the number of patients who returned home from the facility. We found that 6.8 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.

This facility also excelled in the area of inspections. We gave it a grade of A for that area, which is one of our best scores. This is one of the few nursing homes with an overall score in this range which received multiple category grades this high. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in calculating our inspection ratings. One key factor is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of deficiencies is usually more meaningful than the quantity of deficiencies, as some end up being quite minor. This nursing home was assessed 3 deficiencies on its inspection report, but none were considered severe. This indicates that the government inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies to pose an immediate threat to resident safety or health. Remember that deficiency-free inspections are uncommon in the industry.

This nursing home also received a strong nursing score. In fact, we awarded it an above average grade of B+ in this area. The nursing grade weighs several subcategories, most of which are based on nursing hours. This nursing home provides 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures 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 nursing home the state in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can many times be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as by employing a system of moving a patient at least once a day.

The final category we graded is long-term care, which is a weak link for this facility. We gave this facility a D in the area of long-term care, rendering this the facility's worst category grade. We'd nevertheless recommend that you consider all of a nursing home's grades. In a long-term care setting, the nursing home's primary goal is to maintain patients' quality of life and keep them safe. In addition to assessing the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home provided the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients. Surprisingly, this facility also fared well at keeping its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had just 0.04 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days. Sadly, a few of its other scores in this category weren't as favorable as these.