Brandon Health and Rehabilitation Center

In addition to having a decent overall rating, we also want to point out that this facility received favorable health inspections in recent years. We awarded it one of our better grades in that area, with a B+. This is a notably better grade than the facility's overall score. Inspection scores weigh several factors, including deficiencies and federal fines. You can find more information about each of these items by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. This nursing home received 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none were considered severe. This means that the government inspectors did not consider any of these deficiencies to cause an immediate risk to resident safety or health. A few minor deficiencies shouldn't lead you to cross a nursing home off your list.

We also awarded this nursing home a solid score in the category of short-term care, where we gave it a B-. In the area of short-term care, we strive to assess indicators of a nursing home's rehabilitation services. We assess the facility's skilled nursing services, such as the ones performed by registered nurses and physical and occupational therapists. We were surprised to find that this facility was below average in the two key staffing areas we looked at. In fact, it offered fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most other facilities. It is still important to determine whether this also correlates to a lower quality of care. Lastly, we looked at the percentage of patients that ultimately were able to return home from this nursing home. We found that 4.5 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home. This figure was actually well below the national average.

We also gave this nursing home a decent score in the category of nursing care, with a grade of C. Our nursing category consists of several factors, many of which are tied to nursing hours. This particular nursing home provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per patient per day. This figure is far below average. Finally, nursing grades also consider quality-based metrics, such as preventing major falls. Despite not having the highest total nursing hours per resident, this facility actually performed admirably in the metric of preventing major falls. This is usually a good indicator that a place has sufficient quality controls in place. Some falls can be avoided if a nursing home provides enough nurses to assist its residents.

The final category we analyzed is long-term care, proved to be this nursing home's weakest area. We awarded this nursing home a grade of D in that area. For patients looking for a permanent residence as opposed to skilled nursing, long-term care grades are a key measure. In addition to assessing the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. Fortunately, this nursing home administered the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents, which is a very solid statistic. To our surprise, this place was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had just 0.03 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days. Unfortunately, some of its other scores in this category weren't as favorable as these.