Huntington Valley Healthcare Center

My mother was a resident in this facility shortly after major heart surgery in June 2017. The front receptionists are all very friendly. There were issues with a couple of the RNs at first regarding incorrect information and not happy about questioning them with orders. The attending physician assigned to my mother knew nothing about her. The 2nd day there my mother was dehydrated and delusional. However, the nurses didn't even notice. Her nurse didn't want to listen to me until I asked her specific questions in front of him. It was then he believed me. He still did not like to be questioned. It wasn't until my mother woke up with a bloody mouth and no one said anything because they thought she had put lipstick on. It wasn't until the afternoon she realized she was bleeding. This was dangerous because she was on a blood thinner for her new heart valve. Then they realized her labs were "clinically high" as one nurse informed her. My mother had to contact me by her cell phone to advise me of such. I contacted her surgeon at which time they contacted the home and found out how high her INR was. It was over 9.0! This is excessive for a patient with very recent heart surgery. Her surgeon called me back to tell me to get her to the ER stat. I attempted to contact a nurse or anyone really to get her transferred but was then informed by a "Cardiac" nurse that it had been taken care of by the doctor. I advised her of the surgeon’s advice and she didn't seem to care nor think it was an urgent matter. After that I asked to speak to the director and his voicemail was not in service. I could not get a hold of anyone else despite being on hold 15 minutes. I had to leave work and pick up my mother to get her to the ER myself. At the ER they re-tested my mom's INR levels and they were even higher, over 10! The ER physician/pharmacologist came in the room to ask what had happened as he could not fathom how it could be so high. She was hospitalized for 3 days to get it under control. Then the next day while in the hospital the directors of the home visited her to apologize. All while in the meantime, I still have had not one call from the home even though I am the one responsible for ALL her medical care. They never asked me who her primary care physicians were or attempted to contact them. They left all of her care up to THEIR staff (doctor Hsu and nurses) to take over her care even though they knew nothing about her. The 2 stars if because this was actually one of the cleaner homes we had been to as well as the food being better than others. The LVNs here do MOST of the care taking while the RNs hand out meds. Stay here was 9.5 days.

Transferred family member here that was on a ventilator and needed Sub-Acute care. Sub-Acute facilities are few and far between. Sub-acute is about 5% of their population, the remainder is Skilled-Nursing. Compared to another Skilled-Nursing facility in Seal Beach, HVHC is better in terms of staff responsiveness and retaining their staff for longer periods of time. This translates into better care for patients. The building is older but has been remodeled and the RN/LVN/CNA staff is very accommodating. Since they accept patients on ventilators, there are always 2 Respiratory Therapists/Technicians on duty 24/7. They are way more responsive than RTs are in regular hospitals since their coverage area in the building is clustered around 10-12 rooms.

My dad is doing very well at Huntington Valley. The care that they provide is much more than assisted living. The rooms are not too spacious, and he shares a room, but the service is excellent. They do have in-house activities.

She was just out of the hospital when we put mom at Huntington Valley. She has diabetes, and they didn’t know how to handle diabetes. We had to argue and fight with them. They would just follow a chart. They would give her a lot of insulin, her blood sugar would fall to 30, and then they would give her a cookie. At times, their staff is nowhere to be found. They weren't enough people working either. As far as the rooms, they were clean.