Community Care on Palm

Although this facility's overall grade was not favorable, it surprisingly earned a very good score in long-term care. We awarded it a B for that category, which is one of our better grades. Facilities that receive this type of score in long-term care typically provide consistent 24/7 care to ensure residents are well cared for. One of the criteria we considered after nursing hours was vaccinations. This nursing home administered the pneumonia vaccination to 100 percent of its residents. Vaccination is a reliable method to avoid negative health outcomes for the elderly population. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

This facilities next most favorable category was short-term care. We gave it a B- in this category. This is basically a middle of the pack score in this category. Short-term care ratings are important for patients in need of rehabilitation. Rehabilitation usually utilizes additional highly-skilled nursing. This includes a vast spectrum of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, as well as other types of therapy. We were surprised to find that this facility was below average in the two key staffing areas we assessed. In fact, it offered fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most other nursing homes. It is still important to determine whether this also correlates to a lower quality of care. Lastly, we looked at the percentage of patients who ultimately returned home from this facility. We found that 0 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home. This figure was well below the national average.

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. The nursing rating is based on several subcategories, however, the primary one is the level of nurse hours spent with patients. This nursing home averages just 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low figure. Lastly, our nursing scores also factor in quality-based metrics, such as avoiding major falls. Despite not having the most impressive total nursing hours per resident, this facility performed admirably in the metric of preventing major falls. This is typically a good indicator that a place has quality controls in place. Many falls could be avoided if a nursing home supplies enough nurses aids to assist its residents.

Turning the final category of inspections, this ended up being this facility's weakest link. Inspection grades are based on a facility's recent government inspection reports. We gave this facility a D in this category, which is a very weak grade. Our inspection grades weigh many items on the nursing home's inspection reports. When you see severe deficiencies on the inspection reports, this is generally a bad sign. Severe deficiencies indicate a threat to resident safety. This facility was hit with 3 deficiencies on its inspection report. The only positive thing we found is that none of its deficiencies were in the categories that suggest they created a threat to resident safety or health. Finally, this facility also received 5 substantiated complaints in recent years. This is yet another bad sign.