Pleasant Valley Health Care Center

In addition to receiving a strong overall score, this nursing home fared well in our long-term care category. In fact, we gave it an A for that category, which is one of our highest scores. Nursing homes that receive this kind of grade in long-term care typically provide consistent 24/7 care to make sure patients are kept in good health. Once we concluded our assessment of the amount of care provided by nurses, we then looked at the facility's vaccination record. This facility vaccinated 94.48529 percent of its patients against pneumonia, which is an impressive figure. Pneumonia can be a deadly condition for nursing home patients so we like it when a facility does not take any chances. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

We also want to emphasize this facility's nearly flawless government inspections recently. We gave them an impressive grade of A in this area. Our inspection scores account for a host of factors found on a facility's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we look at is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with higher scores in this area tend to have very few severe deficiencies. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Next, we looked at the nursing category where we awarded this nursing home a grade of B-. This facility didn't perform quite as well in this category as it did in some other categories. Nevertheless, this is still a respectable score. The nursing rating is based on several datapoints, but the main one is the quantity of nurse hours per patient per week. This facility provided just 0.4 hours of nursing care per patient per day. This is a relatively low total compared with most nursing homes. Lastly, we also assessed several nursing quality-based metrics. Although this facility got docked a bit for nursing hours, it excelled in some of these quality-based metrics. With less than five percent of its patients sustaining pressure ulcers, it fared remarkably well in this statistic. This is typically a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as having a protocol of turning residents more often.

The final category we graded was short-term care. We awarded this nursing home a D in our short-term care category, making this the nursing home's worst category. Our short-term care scores are critical for individuals looking for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically utilizes more highly-skilled nursing services. This includes a broad range of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other forms of therapy. Unfortunately, this nursing home was below average in terms of its quantity of physical therapy and registered nurse hours provided to its residents based on the measures we assessed. The last datapoint we looked at in this area is the percentage of patients that eventually returned home from the facility. This facility struggled quite a bit in this area as well, with just 3.7 percent of its residents returning home.