Consulate Health Care at West Altamonte

To go along with its decent overall score, we awarded this facility an A+ for our inspections rating. This is far more impressive than its overall grade. Inspection grades weigh several factors included in a facility's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we rely on is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Places with better grades in this category generally have very few of these severe deficiencies. Fortunately, although this place had a few minor dings on its report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those found in categories G through L. This tells you that the inspectors didn't deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. The fact that the deficiencies were relatively minor made us feel better about this inspection report.

This facility also was given a positive grade in our long-term care category. We gave this nursing home a better than average grade of B+ in this category. When nursing homes receive a grade in this range in this category it typically means it has plenty of staff and is a quality place to live on a permanent basis. In addition to looking at the volume of care provided by nurses and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility administered the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients, which is far higher than the average nursing home. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. It had only 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

Another strength of this facility is its favorable grade in nursing. We gave them one of our better scores in that area, with a grade of D. Our nursing grade looks at the nursing home's nurse staffing levels. We factor in both the levels of skill of those nurses and the quantity of hours spent with residents. This nursing home provided just 0.4 hours of nursing care per patient daily. This is a very low total compared to most nursing homes. Finally, we also looked at some nursing quality measures in computing our nursing scores. This place performed well in terms of minimizing its residents' pressure ulcers and major falls.

This nursing home's worst area was short-term care, which is the final category we analyzed. Sadly, it received a lowly F for this category. Despite several solid scores in other areas, this score is nevertheless concerning so we felt obligated to point it out. In forming our short-term care scores, we quantify the facility's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. The goal is to formulate a barometer for sizing up the rehabilitation services of nursing homes. In this facility's case, we found that it provided less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per patient than the typical facility. Lastly, we assessed the percentage of patients that returned home from this nursing home. This facility didn't fare well here either. In fact, we found that just 3.7 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home. This figure was quite a bit off the national average.