Gulfport Care Center

In addition to receiving a strong overall rating, this facility performed even better in our inspections category which is based on the facility's recent government inspection reports. In fact, we gave it an A+ for that category, which is one of our best grades. Perhaps the most critical factor we consider in computing our inspection scores is deficiencies. Deficiencies can be found on a nursing home's inspection reports. Nursing homes with better grades in this category typically avoided the most severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. This particular nursing home received 2 deficiencies on its inspection report. Overall, this is still a good inspection report, but we'd always recommend looking into any deficiencies you find troubling.

Another strong feature for this nursing home is that it received an impressive long-term care score. In fact, this wound up being its second best category grade. In that category, we awarded this nursing home a grade of B+. Nursing homes that excel in long-term care typically are well-staffed and provide extensive hands on care to patients. One of the criteria we considered in addition to nursing hours was vaccinations. This nursing home administered the pneumonia vaccination to 100 percent of its patients. Vaccination is a proven method to avoid unnecessary hospitalizations for the senior population. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

This nursing home's third highest category turned out to be short-term care. In that area, we awarded this facility a grade of C. With our short-term care category, we endeavor to forge a sound measure for rehabilitation. In this process, we analyze the nursing home's levels of skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as respiratory therapy. We were not able to track down information on registered nurse or physical therapy staffing for this nursing home. Lastly, we considered the percentage of residents who eventually returned home from this nursing home. We found that 5.4 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home. This figure was actually well below average.

Turning to our next category, this facility was given an acceptable nursing grade of C. Our nursing score looks at the facility's level of nurse staffing. We factor in both the levels of skill of the nurses as well as the number of hours spent with patients. This facility provided just 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a relatively low total compared to most other facilities. Lastly, our nursing ratings also consider quality-based metrics, such as avoiding major falls. Despite not having the most impressive total nursing hours, this facility actually performed admirably in the area of preventing major falls. This is usually an indicator that a nursing home has sufficient quality controls in place. Some falls could be avoided if a nursing home supplies enough nurses aids to assist its patients.