Valley View Health Care

The primary reason this facility received a decent overall grade is its impeccable inspections in recent years. We awarded it one of our higher scores in that category, with an A+. This is a notably better grade than the facility's overall grade, which was decent but not in the elite range. Perhaps the most significant factor we look at in determining our inspection scores is deficiencies. These deficiencies are found on a facility's recent inspection reports. Facilities with better grades in this area typically avoided the most severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. It does not look like we were able to find information about this nursing home's deficiencies. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is always a good sign.

This facility also performed favorably in the area of long-term care, with top notch score of A- in this category. Facilities that receive this type of grade in long-term care typically provide consistent 24/7 care to make sure patients are well cared for. On top of considering the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility gave the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients. Vaccines are critical to keeping residents healthy. Lastly, we looked at the nursing home's number of hospitalizations. We found that this facility had 2.22 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days.

Next we wanted to quickly point out one of this facility's major weaknesses. In the area of nursing care, we gave this nursing home a lowly grade of F. In determining a nursing home's nursing grade, we consider the amount of time nurses spend with patients as well as the skill levels of those nurses. This nursing home provides 3.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day, which is slightly below the national average. On top of ranking below average in nursing hours per resident, this place also had poor scores in the quality-based measures we looked at in determining our nursing ratings. We looked at the percentage of patients experiencing pressure ulcers and major falls. This facility was at roughly 150 percent of the national average in both of these metrics. This is likely a bad sign when you consider that many falls and bed sores are preventable with better nursing care. These statistics helped pull down this nursing home's nursing grade quite a bit.

The next category we looked at is short-term care. It received a lowly F for this area, which is a very poor score. This is obviously a major concern. In calculating our short-term care ratings, we scrutinize a nursing home's levels of skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists speech therapists and other highly trained professionals. This rating is considered to be a meaningful assessment of the facility's rehabilitation services. As you might expect, we discovered that this facility provides substantially less registered nurse and physical therapist hours per patient than a typical nursing home. The last measure we considered in this category is the percentage of patients who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We discovered that just 34.5 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home, which is well below average. The combination of these subpar statistics was damning for this nursing home's short-term care score.