Driftwood Healthcare Center

Although we did not rate this facility well overall, we want to point out its decent grade of B- in the category of nursing. Our nursing score considers a number of datapoints. The most heavily weighted variable is the amount of time nurses spent with residents. This nursing home provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident on a daily basis. This figure is significantly below average. Despite having low quantities of nursing care, this place excelled in some of the quality measures we assessed. It scored well when it comes to minimizing its residents' major falls and pressure ulcers. We consider these areas to be indicators of the quality of nursing care. In some cases, the quality of nursing care is as important as the quantity of hours of care offered.

We also awarded this nursing home a middle of the road score in the category of short-term care, where we gave it a B-. Our short-term care ratings are crucial for people needing rehabilitation. Rehabilitation usually utilizes higher levels of highly-skilled nursing. This means a wide range of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, as well as other variations of therapy. Unfortunately, this place was below average in terms of its level of registered nurse and physical therapy hours provided to its residents based on the metrics we assessed. The important question is whether this also impacted quality of care. Lastly, we assessed the percentage of residents that were able to return home from this facility. We found that 4.6 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home. This figure was actually quite a bit below the national average.

This facility received its next most favorable category score in the area of long-term care. We gave this facility a grade of C in this area, which is an acceptable score. Our long-term care grades are based in part on the nursing home's quantity of care. This includes a broad scope of personal care services, ranging from help with activities of daily living to routine medical services. Once we looked at the quantity of care provided by nurses and other staff, we turned to the facility's vaccination record. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents against pneumonia, which is more than the majority of nursing homes. This nursing home also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. It had only 0.03 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

Turning the last category of inspections, this ended up being this nursing home's weakest link. Inspection grades are based on a facility's recent inspections. We gave this facility just a D in this category, which is a very weak grade. Inspection scores factor in many items found on the nursing home's recent inspection reports. When you see too many deficiencies on the reports, this is typically a bad sign. Severe deficiencies indicate a risk to the well being of residents. This nursing home had 7 deficiencies by government inspectors. The only favorable thing we can say is that none of the deficiencies were in the categories that suggest that they caused a threat to resident health or safety. Lastly, we need to point out that this nursing home was assessed large government fines in excess of $50,000. This often suggests that inspectors became frustrated after several years of failed health inspections.