Providence Valdez Medical Center

We also found that this nursing home excelled in our long-term care rating. We gave them an impressive grade of A+ in this category. Nursing homes that do well in long-term care typically provide residents with more supervision and stay on top of routine healthcare services. On top of looking at the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we analyzed the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home provided the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents. Vaccines are vital to keeping patients healthy. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

One of the other reasons we graded this facility so highly is that it earned a very impressive nursing grade. Nursing turned out to be its second best category grade. In that category, we gave this nursing home an A+. In determining our nursing grades, we look at both staffing levels and the levels of licensure of those nurses. This nursing home averages 0.7 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This place performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a facility has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can frequently be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

This nursing home also earned a nearly flawless inspection report. As a result, it earned one of our highest grades in that category with an A+. Our inspection scores are based on several items found on the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places that receive favorable grades in this category have very few deficiencies on those reports. Most importantly, these places generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with endangerment of patients. While this place had a few deficiencies on its inspection report, none were severe based on CMS' deficiency scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

The last category we graded is short-term care, where this nursing home was given an A-. This rounded out a first-rate profile. Very few facilities received an A- or better in every single category. In crafting these short-term care scores, we quantify the nursing home's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. Our purpose is to formulate a tool for sizing up the rehabilitation services of various nursing homes. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. Not all nursing homes employs these types of nurses. However, according to the data they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final statistic we considered in this category is the percentage of patients who were able to leave the nursing home and return home. We discovered that 0 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home.