Valle Vista Convalescent Hospital

We also would like to point out that this nursing home has earned nearly flawless inspections in recent years. We gave them an A in this area. Inspection scores take several factors into consideration, including deficiencies and substantiated complaints. You can learn more about each of these items by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. While this nursing home had a few deficiencies on its report, none were serious based on CMS' deficiency scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This facility also performed well in the category of long-term care, where we awarded it a score of A. Very few nursing homes received a better grade in this area. Facilities that excel in this category typically are well-staffed and provide extensive hands on care to residents. On top of looking at the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we analyzed the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility gave the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients, which is very impressive. Pneumonia is too frequently a deadly illness for nursing home patients so we like it when a facility doesn't leave this to chance. Lastly, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

This facility also fared very well in the area of short-term care, where it received a score of A-. Few facilities received a better grade in this category. Short-term care grades are often employed to gauge a nursing home's performance with rehabilitation To have highly rated rehabilitation services, nursing homes generally must have better levels of highly skilled nursing. These types of services include registered nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists and other licensed professionals. One of this nursing home's strength is that it offers more hours of physical therapy per week to its residents. The last measure we looked at in this area is the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community. We found that this facility was above average with 53.7 percent of its residents returning home.

The fourth area we assessed is nursing, where this facility was awarded a grade of B+. This finished off a first-rate profile. Very few nursing homes earned a B+ or higher in every single category. In calculating a nursing home's nursing grade, we look at the amount of time nurses are with residents and the level of licensure of the nurses. This particular nursing home provided 3.8 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, we also assessed certain nursing quality measures in computing our nursing grades. These include minimizing residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. We look at these metrics as reliable indicators of the caliber of nursing care provided, since better care tends to reduce these problems.