The Orchards–Southgate

Even though this facility's overall grade was terrible, it actually didn't perform as poorly in nursing. We gave it a C for this category. When computing a nursing home's nursing rating, we weigh the number of hours nurses are with residents as well as the skill levels of the nurses. This place provided just 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident daily. This is a relatively low total compared to most other nursing homes. Despite having low quantities of nursing care, this facility actually excelled in some of the quality measures we looked at. In fact, it performed well in the area of avoiding pressure ulcers and major falls. Many consider these areas to be reliable measures of the quality of nursing care. In many cases, the quality of nursing care is every bit as important as the number of hours of care provided.

This nursing home didn't perform terribly in the area of inspections. We gave it a C for that category. Other aspects of its profile turned out to be the source of this facility's abysmal overall grade. Inspection ratings account for several factors included in a facility's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we look at is the number and severity of deficiencies. This place had 8 deficiencies on its inspection report, but none were in categories G through L. This means this facility avoided the more serious classes of deficiencies. Unfortunately, we also need to draw your attention to the fact that this facility received significant government fines in recent years.

Another issue is the F this nursing home received in the area of long-term care. Long-term care ratings of this caliber generally are a bad sign for the quantity and quality of care provided by nurses and aids, as well as the levels of routine medical care available. After considering the amount of care provided by nurses, we then analyzed the nursing home's vaccination record. We were a bit worried that this facility vaccinated just 49.640285 percent of its patients for pneumonia. To our surprise, this facility was actually decent at keeping its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had just 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days. This was its best feature in this category.

The final category we scored was short-term care, where this nursing home received a bottom of the barrel score here also. We gave it an abysmal F in this area, which is obviously somewhat alarming. Our short-term care grades are thought to be most important for individuals in need of a nursing home for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically mandates additional highly-skilled nursing services. This means not just nursing, but also physical and speech therapy, as well as other types of therapy. With a grade this poor in this category, we weren't shocked to learn this nursing home was below average in two of the key staffing areas we looked at. In fact, it provided significantly fewer registered nurse and physical therapist hours per patient than most facilities. The final item we considered in this category is the percentage of residents who were able to leave the nursing home and return to the community. We discovered that just 2.9 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home, which is well below average. The combination of these subpar statistics sunk this facility's short-term care grade.