Pearl Valley Rehabilitation and Nursing at Sutherland

Pearl Valley Rehabilitation and Nursing at Sutherland is the sole option we identified in Sutherland, Iowa. This facility is ranked among the highest-rated facilities we assessed. It was given one of the highest grades that we offer. We were so impressed with this facility that we ranked it in the top 20 percent of all nursing homes nationally. If you scroll down, you can see this place's category ratings, which are also strong.

We also would like to emphasize the fact that this facility excelled in our nursing score. We awarded them an A+ in this category. We weighed the licensure of nurses working for the facility, in addition to the quantity of time those nurses worked with patients, in calculating our rating in this category. This place provided 4.3 hours of nursing care per patient each day, which is among the highest totals in the country. A significant portion of those hours were provided by registered nurses, which are one of the most highly skilled levels of nurses. We are very impressed by these figures. On top of providing high levels of nursing care, this facility also excelled in the quality-based metrics we assessed. It performed as well as any nursing home in the nation when it comes to avoiding major falls and pressure ulcers.

This facility has received near flawless health inspections in recent years. We awarded them an impressive grade of A in this category. Inspection scores weigh a host of factors found on a facility's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we look at is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Places with higher grades in this area tend to have very few of these severe deficiencies. While this facility 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 CMS didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. We should note that deficiency-free inspections are rare in this industry.

Building on its first-rate resume, this nursing home also received a strong short-term care score, with a grade of A. In crafting these short-term care scores, we look at the nursing home's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, speech therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. The purpose is to devise a measure for sizing up the rehabilitation services of different nursing homes. One reason for this facility's strong score in this category is that it provides more care with registered nurses to its residents than the average nursing home. Lastly, we looked at the percentage of residents who ultimately were able to return home from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home.

Switching gears to our final category, this facility received a strong long-term care rating. While this wasn't quite as dominant as several of its other grades, this is nevertheless one of the more favorable grades a facility can receive. When nursing homes receive this kind of score in this category it is usually a good sign for resident care and indicates that the nursing home is well-staffed with nurses aids. After assessing the significant amount of nursing hours and other staffing provided by this facility, we then analyzed the nursing home's vaccination data. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its patients against pneumonia, which is significantly higher than the average nursing home. This combination proved to be successful as this facility was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. It had only 1.56 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days.