Providence Valdez Medical Center

One of the many reasons this turned out to be a quality nursing home is that it received an A+ inspection grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this critical category. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in determining our inspection scores. One critical factor is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of these deficiencies is arguably more meaningful than the quantity of deficiencies, as some of these can be relatively insignificant. Fortunately, although this facility had some minor dings on its report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means the inspectors didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This first-rate facility also performed well in the category of long-term care, where we gave it a score of A+. Few facilities fared better in this category. Long-term care ratings of this caliber generally require both 24/7 care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine healthcare services. In addition to looking at the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility administered the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients, which is what we like to see. Pneumonia is often a life or death condition for nursing home residents so we like it when a nursing home does not take any chances. 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 an impressively low figure.

In addition, this facility received high marks in the area of nursing. As a result, it received one of our highest grades in that category with a score of A+. We analyzed the levels of nurses working for the facility, as well as the quantity of time those nurses worked with patients, in computing our grade in this category. This facility provided 0.9 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, we also looked at some nursing quality measures in determining our nursing grades. This facility performed very well in terms of minimizing its residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

The last area we scored was short-term care, where this facility was given a grade of A-. This wrapped up a very strong profile. Only a select few nursing homes received an A- or better in each of our categories. In the area of short-term care, we attempt to evaluate indicators of a nursing home's rehabilitation services. We assess the facility's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses and physical and occupational therapists. Fortunately, it appear that this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the information they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Lastly, we considered the number of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.