Life Care Center of Orange Park

To pair with its strong overall grade, we gave this place an A+ for our inspection category. Our inspection scores account for a host of factors found on a facility's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we consider is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Places with higher scores in this area typically have very few severe deficiencies. While this facility had a few minor dings on its report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones found in categories G through L. This means that the inspectors didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

On the list of its many elite scores, this nursing home was awarded a strong short-term care grade. In fact, we awarded it a score of A- in that category. In forming our short-term care scores, we quantify the nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. The objective is to create a tool for sizing up the rehabilitation services of different facilities. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like this facility submitted information on registered nurse or physical therapist staffing. The last measure we looked at in this category is the number of residents that ultimately were able to return home from the nursing home. We found that 5.8 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.

The third area we graded is long-term care. This facility was given a very positive long-term care score, with a grade of B+ in this area. When nursing homes receive a score in this range in this category it typically means it's well-staffed and is an overall good place to live on a permanent basis. In addition to looking at the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients, which is what we like to see. Pneumonia tragically can be a dangerous health condition for nursing home residents so we prefer when a facility doesn't roll the dice on this issue. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

The final category we analyzed proved to be this facility's worst category. However, even its lowest point would actually be a strength for many facilities. In fact, we gave it an above average grade of B in nursing. Our nursing grade is based on the nursing home's level of nurse staffing. We factor in both the levels of skill of those nurses and the quantity of hours spent with residents. This particular nursing home provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures 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 nursing home the country in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as employing a protocol of turning a resident more often.