Bradenton Health Care

On top of receiving a strong overall score, this facility performed well in our short-term care category. In fact, we awarded it an A for that category, which is one of our highest grades. Our short-term care grade is typically employed to measure a nursing home's performance with rehabilitation. To have highly graded rehabilitation services, facilities generally must feature higher levels of skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing includes registered nurses, physical therapists, speech therapists and other highly trained professionals. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not all nursing homes employs these skilled professionals. However, based on the information they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last metric we looked at in this area is the number of patients who were able to leave the nursing home and return to the community. We found that 5.5 percent of this nursing home's residents were able to return home.

This facility also performed well in the area of inspections. In fact, it received a nearly flawless inspection report this year. It received one of our highest grades in that category with a score of A-. Few nursing homes with an overall grade in this range performed this well in multiple categories. Our inspection ratings weigh several factors found on a nursing home's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we rely on is the number and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with better scores in this area typically have very few of these severe deficiencies. Although this facility had some deficiencies on its inspection report, none were serious based on CMS' deficiency scale. We should note that deficiency-free inspection reports are uncommon in the industry.

This facility is also strong in the area of nursing, where it received a grade of B. It outperformed most nursing homes in this category. Nursing grades are based in large part on nurse staffing levels. This facility provided 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at some nursing quality-based metrics in determining our nursing grades. This nursing home 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.

The last area we assessed is long-term care, which turned out to be this facility's least impressive area. We awarded this nursing home a grade of D in this area. Of course, this score pulled down the facility's overall profile to some degree. For prospective patients in need of a permanent place to live as opposed to rehabilitation, long-term care grades are an important measure. Once we assessed the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we next considered the facility's vaccination data. We were optimistic to find that this nursing home vaccinated 98.12734 percent of its residents for pneumonia. To our surprise, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. With just 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, this facility has fewer hospitalizations than many nursing homes. Sadly, some of its other scores in this category were not as favorable as these.