College Park Healthcare Center

Although we gave this facility a terrible overall grade, we awarded it a grade of B- for our long-term care rating. For residents looking for a permanent residence rather than rehabilitation, long-term care is a very important category. In addition to considering the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. As it turns out, this facility vaccinated only 89.00344 percent of its residents, which is somewhat concerning. Nevertheless, this place was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. It had only 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

This facility really didn't perform terribly in the area of inspections. In fact, we awarded it a C for that category. Other aspects of its profile were the source of this facility's rock bottom overall score. Inspection scores account for a host of factors found on a nursing home's inspection reports. One key criteria we weigh heavily is the number and severity of deficiencies. This place had 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to find that none were category G through L deficiencies. This tells you it avoided the more serious classes of deficiencies. Finally, this facility was cited by CMS for possible abuse or neglect. We would not recommend this facility under any circumstance.

We were also surprised to find that this facility received a decent nursing grade this year. We gave it a grade of C in that category. Our nursing score includes a host of subcategories. The most important variable is the number of hours nurses spent with residents. This facility provides 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident each day. This is a lower figure than we are used to seeing. Despite having low quantities of nursing care, this facility excelled in some of the quality measures we looked at. In fact, it performed well when it comes to avoiding major falls and pressure ulcers. Many consider these areas to be reliable indicators of the quality of nursing care. In some cases, the quality of nursing care is every bit as important as the number of hours of care offered.

The next area we analyzed is short-term care, proved to be this nursing home's weakest area. We gave this nursing home a D in this category. Short-term care grades are commonly used to grade a facility's performance with rehabilitation. To have highly graded rehabilitation services, facilities generally need to feature better levels of skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing includes registered nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists and other highly trained professionals. Not surprisingly, we found that this nursing home provides far less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than the average facility. The final measure we considered in this category is the number of residents who were able to leave the nursing home and return to the community. We discovered that just 5.4 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.