Valley Health Services

Valley Health Services is a large non-profit facility located in Herkimer, New York. This nursing home was awarded an overall grade of B+, which is very favorable score. Based on our ratings, this place looks like a good fit for most people. This place was better in some categories than others, but it did not have any bad scores in any of the major categories discussed below. More information about these categories can be found below.

In addition to faring well overall, this facility earned a nearly flawless inspection report. Therefore, it earned one of our best scores in that area with an A+. Arguably the most important factor we consider in computing our inspection grades is deficiencies. These deficiencies are found on a facility's inspection reports. Nursing homes with higher scores in this category most likely dodged the more severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. While this nursing home had a few minor dings on its inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means that the government inspectors didn't deem 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 facility received an impressive long-term care score as well. We awarded it one of our higher grades in that category with a grade of B+. Facilities that receive this type of score in this category tend to provide consistent 24/7 care to ensure patients are kept in good health. In addition to considering the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility vaccinated 99.27536 percent of its patients. Vaccines are vital to keeping residents healthy. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

This facility also was awarded a strong short-term care grade. Indeed, we gave it an above average grade of B in this category. In forming these short-term care scores, we look at the nursing home's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. Our goal is to formulate a barometer for comparing the rehabilitation services of various facilities. This nursing home employs both physical therapists and registered nurses. Not all facilities employ these skilled professionals. Lastly, we looked at the percentage of patients who who were able to eventually return home from this nursing home. It performed respectably in this area with 47.1 percent of its patients returning home.

The next category we looked at was this nursing home's worst category. Nevertheless, even in its worst category we still awarded it a respectable grade of B- for our nursing category. We weighed the qualifications of nurses working for the facility, in addition to the quantity of hours the nurses were with patients, in computing our rating in this category. Based on the CMS data, this nursing home offers 3.6 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as preventing major falls. This place performed admirably in this area. Avoiding major falls is usually a good indicator that a facility has quality controls in place. Many falls can be prevented if a nursing home offers enough nurses aids to assist its residents.