Cypress Cove Care Center

One of the many reasons this turned out to be a quality nursing home is that it received an A+ inspection grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this critical category. Perhaps the most significant factor we consider in determining our inspection grades is deficiencies. Deficiencies can be found on a facility's recent inspection reports. Places with higher grades in this category most likely dodged the most severe deficiencies involving things like patient abuse. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

We also wanted to note the fact that this nursing home was superb in our long-term care category. We awarded them a dominant grade of A+ in this area. Long-term care scores in this range generally require both 24/7 care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine healthcare services. On top of looking at the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its patients, which is much higher than the vast majority of nursing homes. Finally, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

This nursing home also received a very impressive nursing grade. In that area, we awarded this facility a grade of A-. Our nursing score is based on a variety of factors. The most heavily weighted factor is the amount of time nurses spend with patients. This nursing home provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality-based metrics and this nursing home excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any nursing home the nation in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as having a protocol of moving residents more frequently.

The final area we scored was short-term care. This facility received a very good short-term care rating this year, with a grade of C. Even though this is not nearly as elite as some of its other scores, this is still a decent grade for that category. In determining our short-term care grades, we size up a facility's levels of skilled nursing services, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists occupational therapists and other highly trained professionals. This score is more often than not a reliable measure of a nursing home's ability to rehabilitate patients. Unfortunately, we were not able to locate information on registered nurse or physical therapy staffing for this nursing home. Lastly, we looked at the number of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 5 percent of this facility's patients returned home. At most facilities, closer to half of their residents are able to return home so this figure is below average.