Mission Palms Healthcare Center

In addition to receiving a strong overall score, this facility also received top notch health inspections in recent years. We gave them one of our higher grades in this area, with an A-. Inspection grades are based on several pieces of information found on the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places that excel in this area tend to have very few deficiencies on their reports. Most importantly, these facilities generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with endangerment of patients. Fortunately, although this facility had some minor dings on its government inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you that CMS didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Remember that deficiency-free inspection reports are uncommon in the industry.

Contributing to this facility's list of achievements, it also was awarded a top-shelf long-term care score. We awarded them a dominant grade of A- in this category. Facilities that receive this kind of score in long-term care tend to provide consistent around the clock care to make sure patients are kept in good health. Once we assessed the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination record. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its residents against pneumonia. Vaccines are critical to keeping patients healthy. 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 figure.

This facility really excelled in the area of nursing, where it received a grade of A-. Few nursing homes performed better in this area. In calculating our nursing scores, we analyze both staffing levels and the skill levels of the nurses. This nursing home provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality measures and this facility 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 state 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 having a protocol of moving residents more often.

The final area we assessed was short-term care. This nursing home was awarded a very good short-term care grade this year, with a B-. While this was not nearly as good as some of its other category grades, this is still an acceptable score in that category. Our short-term care ratings are meaningful for patients in need of rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally mandates additional skilled nursing. This means a wide spectrum of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, as well as other forms of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the information this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last measure we assessed in this category is the number of residents who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We discovered that just 4.2 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home, which is actually below average.