Avante at Lake Worth

While this place's overall grade was not a highlight, it did receive a very good grade in the category of inspections. We awarded it a grade of B+ for that category, which is one of our better grades. Our inspection ratings weigh a host of factors found on a facility's inspection report. One key criteria we rely on is the number and severity of deficiencies. You generally want to avoid facilities with too many deficiencies flagged. Although this facility had a few deficiencies on its inspection report, none of them were serious based on CMS' deficiency scale. A couple minor deficiencies aren't necessarily the end of the world.

This nursing home actually received a decent grade in the area of nursing as well. We awarded it a grade of C for that category, which is not a bad score. Our nursing grade is based on many subcategories, however, the paramount consideration is the number of nurse hours per patient per week. This place averages just 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident on a daily basis, which is well below average. Despite having low quantities of nursing care, this facility excelled in some of the quality measures we looked at. In fact, it scored well in terms of minimizing its residents' major falls and pressure ulcers. Many consider these areas to be measures of the quality of nursing care. In many cases, the quality of nursing care is as important as the quantity of hours of care provided.

We gave this nursing home a grade of just D for our long-term care score. This is not an impressive grade. In a long-term care setting, the primary objective is to maintain patients' quality of life and keep them safe. After considering the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we then looked at the facility's vaccination record. We were optimistic to discover that this nursing home vaccinated 95.77922 percent of its residents against pneumonia. To our surprise, this place also fared well at keeping its residents out of the hospital. It had just 0.04 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days. Unfortunately, some of its other scores in the category were not as favorable as these.

The next category we graded was short-term care, ended up being this nursing home's weakest category. We gave this nursing home a grade of D in that category. In computing our short-term care grades, we assess a nursing home's levels of highly skilled nursing services, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists respiratory therapists and other highly trained professionals. This category is considered to be a fair measure of the facility's rehabilitation. Considering its weak score in this area, we were not stunned to find that this nursing home offered far fewer registered nurse and physical therapist hours per resident than most facilities. Finally, we considered the percentage of residents who were able to return home from this facility. This nursing home didn't fare well here either. In fact, we found that just 3.6 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home. This figure was well off the national average.