Driftwood Nursing Center

In addition to receiving a strong overall grade, this facility fared well in our long-term care category. We gave it an A for that category, which is one of our highest scores. When nursing homes receive a grade in this range in long-term care it generally means it has plenty of staff and is an overall good place to reside on a permanent basis. After we finished assessing the quantity of care provided by nurses, we next considered the facility's vaccination statistics. This nursing home vaccinated 99.71671 percent of its patients for pneumonia, which is what we like to see. Pneumonia is too frequently a life or death illness for nursing home patients so we prefer when a nursing home does not leave its residents vulnerable. Lastly, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had only 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

Adding to its impressive profile, this nursing home also performed well in the area of inspections. In fact, it earned a nearly flawless government inspection report this year. As a result, it earned one of our best grades in that area with an A. Perhaps the most significant factor we consider in computing our inspection ratings is deficiencies. These deficiencies can be found on a facility's recent inspection reports. Places with better grades in this area typically dodged the most severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. This facility received 2 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none were considered to be major deficiencies. This tells you that CMS didn't consider any of these deficiencies to pose an immediate risk to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

In addition, this facility also received favorable nursing grades this year. In fact, we awarded them one of our better scores in that area, with a grade of B+. Our nursing rating looks at the facility's level of nurse staffing. We consider both the levels of skill of those nurses and the number of hours spent with patients. This particular nursing home provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality-based metrics and this place excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any place the nation in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as by employing a system of turning patients even once per day.

The last category we scored was short-term care. We awarded this facility an acceptable score in that area, with a C. While this was not as dominant as many of this nursing home's other scores, it is nevertheless a middle of the pack score. Our short-term care ratings are arguably most important for those in need of a nursing home for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically mandates higher levels of skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes not only nursing, but also physical and occupational therapy, as well as other types of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not all facilities employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, based on the data this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Finally, we looked at the number of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 4.7 percent of this facility's patients returned home. At most nursing homes, closer to half of their residents are able to return home so this figure is below average.