Country Villa South Convalescent Center

While we graded this facility incredibly poorly overall, it received a fairly respectable nursing grade this year. We gave it a grade of B- in that category. Our nursing grade assesses the nursing home's nurse staffing levels. We look at both the levels of training of the nurses as well as the quantity of hours spent with residents. This place provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a lower figure than we were hoping for. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality-based metrics. While this facility got docked a bit for nursing hours, it excelled in some of these quality-based metrics. With less than five percent of its residents suffering from pressure ulcers, it performed remarkably well in this area. This is generally an indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can many times be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as employing a policy of moving patients more often.

We were also pleasantly surprised to learn that this nursing home earned a reasonably solid long-term care rating this year. We gave it a C in that area. In computing our long-term care ratings, we look at the assistance with daily living offered to a nursing home's patients. Once we looked at the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we turned to the nursing home's vaccination record. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its patients against pneumonia, which is better than the majority of nursing homes. Finally, this facility was also able to limit hospitalizations. It had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

This nursing home's second least favorable score was short-term care, where it received just a D in that category. This is a relatively poor score. Short-term care grades are based in part on the facility's quantity of skilled highly skilled professionals. This includes a broad scope of services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, not to mention other forms of therapy. Not surprisingly, we found that this nursing home provides far less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than the average facility. The last measure we looked at in this category is the number of patients who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We discovered that just 2.7 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home, which is well below average. The combination of these poor statistics was damning for this facility's short-term care score.

The last category we looked at is inspections. Unfortunately, this ended up being this facility's weakest link. We gave it a D in this area. Since this data is collected by independent government inspectors, we weight it heavily in our overall grade. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in computing these inspection grades. One key factor is deficiencies. We recommend you scrutinize the severity of those deficiencies. This facility was hit with 10 deficiencies by government inspectors. The only positive thing we can say is that none of the deficiencies were in the categories that indicate they created a risk to patient safety or health. Lastly, this facility was flagged by CMS for possible abuse or neglect. We prefer to avoid facilities with this designation. Please do your best to find an alternative nursing home.