Oceanside Care Center

This nursing home received a solid overall grade as described above, but we really wanted to emphasize its nearly flawless health inspections in recent years. We awarded them an A+ in this category. Inspection ratings account for a host of factors included in a nursing home's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we rely on is the number and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with better grades in this area tend to have very few of these severe deficiencies. While this nursing home had a few minor dings on its inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those found in categories G through L. This tells you the inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. A couple of minor deficiencies should not stop you from considering a nursing home.

One of this nursing home's more respectable category scores was in the category of long-term care. This proved to be its second best category. In that area, we gave this nursing home a grade of B-. For long-term care residents, the primary objective is to keep patients as healthy and safe as possible. This is different than skilled nursing or short-term care where the goal is to rehabilitate patients. On top of considering the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home provided the vaccine to 84.28094 percent of its patients. This is several points less than what we were hoping for. On a more positive note, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had only 0.03 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

The third category we assessed is short-term care, where this facility received a C in this category. In the area of short-term care, we strive to qualify measures of a nursing home's rehabilitation. We look at the nursing home's skilled nursing services, including the ones performed by registered nurses and physical, occupational and other therapists. Unfortunately, we found that this place provided fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most other facilities. The more important thing is determining what effect this had on quality of care. Finally, we considered the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 4.6 percent of this facility's patients returned home. At most nursing homes, closer to half of their residents are able to return home so this figure is below average.

The final category we scored was nursing, which is a weak link for this nursing home. We awarded this facility a D in nursing. Our nursing score assesses the facility's level of nurse staffing. We factor in both the levels of skill of those nurses and the quantity of hours spent with patients. This facility provided just 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low total compared to most nursing homes. This nursing home also had terrible marks in some of the quality-based metrics to go along with its weak nursing hours. We looked at the percentage of patients sustaining pressure ulcers and we were quite disappointed. This facility was at approximately 150 percent of the national average in this metric. This is likely a bad sign when you consider that so many bed sores are preventable with better nursing care. This metric helped pull down this facility's nursing rating significantly.