Plymouth Harbor

One of the many reasons this turned out to be a quality nursing home is that it received an A+ inspection grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this critical category. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in computing our inspection scores. One critical factor is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of these deficiencies is arguably more important than the quantity of deficiencies, as some deficiencies are relatively minor. This place was assessed 2 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none were considered to be severe deficiencies. This means that the government inspectors didn't consider any of the deficiencies to be an imminent threat to resident safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

We also gave this nursing home a score of A+ for its long-term care grade. Facilities that receive this kind of grade in long-term care typically provide consistent around the clock care to make sure patients are well cared for. Once we finished looking at the amount of nursing care, we next considered the nursing home's vaccination data. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its patients for pneumonia, which is an impressive figure. Pneumonia sadly is often a life or death illness for nursing home patients so we like it when a nursing home does not roll the dice on this issue. Finally, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

This nursing home also received a very impressive nursing grade. In that area, we awarded this facility a grade of A-. Our nursing rating includes a handful of datapoints, but the paramount consideration is the quantity of nurse hours per patient per week. This particular nursing home provided 0 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures and this place excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any facility Florida in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as employing a system of turning patients at least once a day.

Moving on to our next area, this nursing home was given an excellent short-term care rating. In fact, we awarded it an A- in this category, rounding out a straight A profile. Our short-term care ratings are probably more meaningful for people requiring rehabilitation services. Rehabilitation generally utilizes higher levels of skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing means not just nursing, but also physical and speech therapy, as well as other forms of therapy. Unfortunately, it does not appear that this nursing home provided information on registered nurse or physical therapist staffing. Finally, we considered the number of residents who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 5.2 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home.