Pathways Memory Care at Villa Toscana

While we graded this facility incredibly poorly overall, it received a somewhat respectable nursing score this year. We gave it a grade of C in that category. We looked at the levels of nurses at the facility, in addition to the quantity of time those nurses spent with residents, in calculating our rating in this area. This facility provided just 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a relatively low total compared to most other facilities. Despite having low quantities of nursing care, this nursing home actually fared better in some of the quality-based metrics we assessed. It performed well in the area of avoiding pressure ulcers and major falls.

We were also pleasantly surprised to learn that this facility received a solid short-term care rating this year. We awarded it a C in that category. Our short-term care ratings are likely more important for patients needing rehabilitation from their nursing home. Rehabilitation usually utilizes more highly-skilled nursing services. This includes not only nursing, but also physical and occupational therapy, as well as other variations of therapy. We were surprised to find that this nursing home was below average in the two key staffing areas we looked at. In fact, it provided fewer registered nurse and physical therapist hours per resident than most other nursing homes. It is important to determine whether this also correlates to a lower quality of care. The last item we considered in this category is the percentage of residents that ultimately returned home from the facility. We found that just 4.8 percent of this facility's patients returned home. Unfortunately, this was below the national average.

This facility's second lowest category was long-term care, where it earned a grade of just D in that category. This is a well below average grade. For long-term care residents, the facility's primary goal is to maintain residents' quality of life and keep them safe. On top of considering the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we analyzed the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility gave the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents. To our surprise, this place was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days. Unfortunately, some of its other scores in the category were not as favorable as these.

Turning our last category of inspections, this facility received a horrible grade. For nursing homes with poor inspection scores, you should scrutinize any severe deficiencies found on their recent inspection reports. This particular nursing home had a category G through L deficiency, which rank among the more severe categories of deficiencies. These categories indicate that the deficiencies identified by CMS had the potential to pose actual harm to patients. Finally, this facility also received 33 substantiated complaints in recent years. This is yet another bad sign.