Pleasant View Health Care Center

The primary reason this turned out to be a decent nursing home is that it earned an elite inspection grade. In fact, its inspection grade was far superior to its overall grade. In the inspections category, we gave it an A. Perhaps the most critical factor we consider in determining our inspection ratings is deficiencies. Deficiencies are found on a facility's recent inspection reports. Nursing homes with better grades in this category most likely dodged the most severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. This place was assessed 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but none were considered severe. This indicates that the government inspectors didn't deem any of these deficiencies to pose an immediate threat to resident health or safety. A few minor deficiencies should not lead you to cross a nursing home off your list.

Building on this nursing home's list of strengths, it also received an excellent nursing score. We gave them an impressive grade of C in this area. Nursing scores are primarily based on the facility's nurse staffing. This facility provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a relatively low total compared to most other facilities. Despite having low quantities of nursing care, this place actually fared better in some of the quality-based metrics we looked at. In fact, it scored well in the area of minimizing its residents' major falls and pressure ulcers. We consider these areas to be good measures of the quality of nursing care. In some cases, the quality of nursing care is as important as the number of hours of care provided.

This nursing home's next best category was short-term care. We gave it a C in this category. This is essentially a middle of the road grade in this area. In determining our short-term care ratings, we quantify the nursing home's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. The goal is to devise a barometer for comparing the rehabilitation services of various nursing homes. In this place's case, we were surprised to learn that it actually provides less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per patient than a typical facility. The hope is always that this does not adversely impact the quality of care. Lastly, we assessed the number of residents that eventually returned home from this nursing home. We found that 5.5 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home. This figure was actually quite a bit below average.

The last category we looked at was long-term care, which ended up being a weak link for this nursing home. We awarded this facility a grade of just D in our long-term care category. If you are seeking anything other than rehabilitation, you should take a close look at each facility's long-term care ratings. Once we looked at the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we then looked at the nursing home's vaccination records. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents against pneumonia, which is better than the majority of nursing homes. To our surprise, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. With just 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, this facility had fewer hospitalizations than many nursing homes. Unfortunately, a few of its other scores in this category weren't as favorable as these.