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 gave this nursing home just a D for our long-term care grade and that actually wound up as its next highest category. For long-term care residents, the nursing home's primary goal 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 looking at the quantity of care provided by nurses and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. Fortunately, this facility administered the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients, which is a very respectable figure. To our surprise, this nursing home also keeps its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had just 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days. Unfortunately, some of its other scores in this category were not as favorable as these.

Sadly, this facility's next highest category was short-term care. As it turns out, with a grade of D in this category, it still fared relatively badly. In computing our short-term care grades, we scrutinize the nursing home's levels of skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists respiratory therapists and other highly trained professionals. This area is generally a reliable measure of the nursing home's ability to rehabilitate patients. Not surprisingly, we found that this facility offers significantly less registered nurse and physical therapist hours per patient than the typical nursing home. The final measure we looked at in this area is the percentage of patients who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We discovered that just 4.8 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home, which is well below average. The combination of these subpar statistics sunk this nursing home's short-term care score.

In the last category of inspections, this nursing home had an abysmal showing. Sadly, it received an F in our inspection rating. You should pay close attention to any deficiencies on a nursing home's inspection reports when it receives this poor of an inspection grade. We would scrutinize the level of severity of the deficiencies. This particular nursing home had one category G through L deficiency, which are among the more severe categories of deficiencies. This generally indicates that the deficiencies identified by inspectors had the potential to create actual harm to patients. Finally, this facility also received 33 substantiated complaints in recent years. This is yet another bad sign.