Simi Valley Care Center

One of the reasons this turned out to be a strong nursing home is that it received a very impressive inspection grade. Inspections is its best category. In that category, we gave it a grade of A. Inspection grades weigh several factors, including deficiencies and federal fines. You can find more information about each of these issues by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. Unfortunately, we weren't able to locate deficiency data for this nursing home. Without having all of the deficiency data for this nursing home, it is challenging to fully grade it in the area of inspections.

This facility is also above average in the area of long-term care, where it was awarded a grade of B+. It performed more favorably than most nursing homes in this category. Nursing homes that receive this kind of grade in long-term care typically provide consistent 24/7 care to ensure patients are well cared for. One of the criteria we considered in addition to nursing hours was vaccines. This nursing home provided the pneumonia vaccine to 100 percent of its residents. Vaccination is a reliable method to avoid unnecessary deaths and hospitalizations for the aged 65 and up population. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0.03 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

This facilities third most favorable area was short-term care. We gave it a grade of B- in this category. This is essentially a slightly below average score in this area. In calculating our short-term care grades, we assess the nursing home's levels of highly skilled nursing services, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists respiratory therapists and other types of therapists. This grade is considered to be a solid assessment of a nursing home's rehabilitation services. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not every nursing home employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, based on the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Finally, we looked at the number of residents who ultimately were able to return home from this nursing home. We found that 4.6 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home. This figure was actually well below average.

Turning to the final category, this facility was given a B- for nursing, which is generally a respectable rating. We assessed the licensure of nurses at the nursing home, as well as the quantity of hours the nurses worked with residents, in calculating our grade in this category. This nursing home provides 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a much lower figure than we are used to seeing. Lastly, nursing ratings also consider quality-based assessments, such as preventing major falls. Despite not having the most impressive total nursing hours, this facility performed admirably in the area of preventing major falls. This is generally a reliable indicator that a nursing home has quality controls in place. Some falls can be avoided if a nursing home provides enough nurses to assist its patients.