Valley Oaks Care Center

To go along with its strong overall grade, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A for our inspections rating. Inspection grades are tied to pieces of information found on the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Facilities that score well in this area have few deficiencies on those reports. Most importantly, these places should not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with endangerment of patients. While this facility had a few deficiencies on its inspection report, none were major deficiencies based on CMS' deficiency scale. Remember that deficiency-free inspections are uncommon in this industry.

Another one of this facility's quality category grades came in the area of long-term care. We awarded them one of our better scores in that area, with a grade of B+. Nursing homes that receive this kind of grade in this category typically provide consistent 24/7 care to ensure patients are kept in good health. One of the statistics we considered on top of nursing hours was vaccines. This facility provided the pneumonia vaccine to 100 percent of its residents. This is a proven method to avoid unnecessary deaths for the senior population. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

This nursing home also received a strong nursing score. In fact, we awarded it an above average grade of B in this area. Our nursing rating analyzes the nursing home's nurse staffing levels. We weigh both the levels of licensure of the nurses as well as the number of hours spent with patients. This nursing home averages 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This nursing home performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a place has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can often be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

Switching gears to our fourth category, this facility was awarded a grade of C in short-term care, which we consider to be an acceptable score. In the area of short-term care, we try to qualify measures of a nursing home's rehabilitation services. We assess a nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as the ones performed by registered nurses and physical therapists. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, based on the information they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last metric we assessed in this area is the number of residents who were able to leave the facility and return home. We discovered that just 5.1 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home, which is actually below average.