Miller Pointe, a Prospera Community

In addition to performing well in its overall grade, this facility performed at an even higher level in the area of inspections. In fact, it received a nearly flawless inspection report this year. As a result, it received one of our highest grades in that category with a score of A. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in determining our inspection grades. One critical factor is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of deficiencies is arguably more important than the quantity of deficiencies, as some of these can be quite insignificant. Although this facility had a few deficiencies on its inspection report, none were severe based on CMS' scale. We should note that deficiency-free inspections are rare in this industry.

Another one of this facility's above average category scores came in the area of long-term care. We awarded them one of our better grades in that category, with a score of B. Nursing homes that excel in this category typically provide residents with better supervision and stay on top of routine healthcare services. After assessing the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we then looked at the facility's vaccination record. This nursing home vaccinated 97.572815 percent of its residents for pneumonia. Vaccines are critical to keeping residents out of the hospital. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. It had only 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

This facility's next best category was its nursing grade, where it received a grade of B-. While this didn't quite match its scores in some of the categories discussed above, this is still a decent score. There are a variety of criteria included in this area. Many of these datapoints are tied to staffing levels. This nursing home provided just 0.4 hours of nursing care per patient on a daily basis. This is a relatively low total compared to most nursing homes. Finally, we also looked at some nursing quality-based metrics. Although this nursing home got dinged a bit for nursing hours per resident, it excelled in some of these quality-based metrics. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed well in this statistic. This can be an indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as by having a system of turning patients at least once a day.

The next category we scored was short-term care. We awarded this nursing home a grade of B- in that area. Our short-term care grades are based on the nursing home's quantity of skilled skilled healthcare professionals. This means a wide scope of services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other variations of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the information they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final datapoint we assessed in this area is the percentage of patients who were able to return home from the nursing home. We found that just 4.2 percent of this facility's patients returned home. Unfortunately, this was below the national average.