Orchid Cove at New Port Richey

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. Inspection scores account for several factors found on a nursing home's inspection report. One key criteria we weigh heavily is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Places with higher scores in this category typically have few of these severe deficiencies. Although this facility had a few deficiencies on its government inspection report, none were major deficiencies based on CMS' deficiency scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

We also gave this nursing home a grade of A for our long-term care grade. Facilities that do well in long-term care typically provide patients with more supervision and stay on top of routine medical care. One of the factors we considered in addition to nursing hours was vaccines. This facility administered the pneumonia vaccination to 100 percent of its patients. Vaccination is a great way to minimize unnecessary deaths and hospitalizations for the aged 65 and up population. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

This facility's next best category grade came in the area of nursing. In that category, we gave this nursing home a grade of B-. This wasn't quite on par with some of its other category grades mentioned above. In computing a facility's nursing grade, we weigh the amount of time nurses are caring for patients and the skill levels of the nurses. This nursing home provides only 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident on a daily basis. This is a somewhat discouraging figure as it is well below the national average. Finally, nursing grades also factor in quality-based measures, such as avoiding major falls. Despite not having the most impressive total nursing hours per resident, this nursing home actually performed admirably in the area of preventing major falls. This is usually an indicator that a facility has quality controls in place. Many falls can be avoided if a nursing home supplies enough nurses to assist its patients.

The next area we scored was short-term care. In that category, we gave this facility a decent grade of C. This actually proved to be this facility's weakest area. Our short-term care grades are likely most critical for those in need of rehabilitation services. Rehabilitation usually utilizes more skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes not merely nursing, but also physical and respiratory therapy, as well as other variations of therapy. Unfortunately, we weren't able to track down registered nurse or physical therapy staffing data for this facility. The last item we considered in this category is the percentage of patients who who were able to eventually return home from the facility. We found that just 4.5 percent of this facility's patients returned home. This figure was below the national average.