Valley Vue Care Center

In addition to performing well in its overall grade, this nursing home performed at an even higher level in the area of inspections. In fact, it received a nearly flawless inspection report this year. As a result, it received one of our highest grades in that category with a score of A. Inspection grades account for several factors found on a nursing home's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we look at is the number and severity of deficiencies. Nursing homes with better grades in this area generally have very few of these severe deficiencies. This nursing home received 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but fortunately none of the deficiencies were considered severe. This tells you that the inspectors didn't consider any of the deficiencies to cause an imminent risk to patient health or safety. Keep in mind that deficiency-free inspection reports are rare in the industry.

We also awarded this nursing home a grade of A for our nursing grade. Nursing scores are primarily based on a nursing home's level of nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, we also looked at some nursing quality-based metrics in determining our nursing grades. This place performed very well when it comes to minimizing its residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

This facility was awarded a strong short-term care grade as well. We gave it one of our better scores in that category with a score of B. In the category of short-term care, we attempt to assess indicators of a facility's rehabilitation. We assess the facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses and physical therapists. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, based on the data this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last datapoint we considered in this area is the number of residents that were able to return home from the nursing home. We found that 4.9 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.

The next category we assessed was long-term care. This facility was given an impressive long-term care rating in our assessment, with a B-. Even though this wasn't nearly as good as several of its other category grades, this is still a decent rating in this area. Our long-term care grades are more critical for those needing more traditional services related to personal care. In addition to assessing the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home gave the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents. Lastly, this place was also able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.