The Center at Val Vista

To go along with its strong overall grade, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A+ for our inspections rating. Perhaps the most significant factor we look at in determining our inspection scores is deficiencies. Deficiencies can be found on a facility's recent inspection reports. Places with higher grades in this area typically avoided the more severe deficiencies involving health risks or even death. 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.

To add to its strong accomplishments in other areas, we gave this facility a score of A for our long-term care rating. Facilities that receive this type of score in long-term care tend to provide consistent around the clock care to make sure residents are kept in good health. This facility is head and heels above most nursing homes in this area.

Moving on our third category, this facility was given a top-shelf short-term care score. In fact, we gave it a grade of A in that area. With our short-term care rating, we strive to forge a valuable barometer for rehabilitation. In this process, we look at a facility's levels of highly-skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as speech therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final item we looked at in this area is the number of residents that eventually returned home from the nursing home. We found that 6.9 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.

The last category we scored was nursing. In that category, we gave this facility a solid grade of B-. This is this nursing home's least impressive category. In determining a nursing home's nursing rating, we look at the quantity of hours nurses are with patients as well as the level of skill of those nurses. This facility provided just 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a relatively low total compared to most other facilities. Finally, our nursing scores also factor in some quality-focused statistics. We look at the percentage of patients who sustained pressure ulcers and major falls. These data points are decent measures of the quality of nursing care, since better care tends to reduce these issues.