Palma Real

In addition to being a great overall grade, this facility also received A+ health inspections in recent years. Its inspections were virtually flawless. Our inspection grades account for several factors included in a facility's inspection reports. One key criteria we consider is the number and severity of deficiencies. Places with better grades in this category typically have few severe deficiencies. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This facility also received an A+ for its long-term care score. Facilities that receive this type of score in this category typically provide consistent around the clock care to ensure patients are well cared for. On top of looking at the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents, which is an impressive figure. Pneumonia sadly can be a life or death illness for nursing home residents so we prefer when a facility does not roll the dice on this issue. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

The next category we assessed is short-term care, where this facility received a grade of C in this area. Short-term care grades are commonly employed to judge a nursing home's performance with rehabilitation To offer high-end rehabilitation services, facilities generally must provide better levels of skilled nursing services. These types of services include registered nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists and other licensed professionals. Unfortunately, we were not able to find registered nurse or physical therapy staffing data for this nursing home. Lastly, we looked at the number of residents who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this facility's residents returned home. At most nursing homes, closer to half of their residents are able to return home so this figure is below average.

The last category we rated is nursing, turned out to be this nursing home's worst category. We awarded this nursing home a grade of D in that category. This was one of the few weak points on a very solid profile. The nursing grade consists of quite a few data points, but the most important one is the number of nurse hours per patient per week. This place provided only 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident each day. This is a very low total compared to most nursing homes. Although this facility's nursing hours are below average, it actually surprised us in some of the qualitative statistics in this category. In particular, we were pleased to find that its residents appear to be suffering fewer pressure ulcers than most nursing homes.