Rockledge Health and Rehabilitation Center

To go along with its decent overall grade, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A- for our nursing rating. This score is far more impressive than the facility's overall rating. In determining our nursing ratings, we analyze both the number of hours nurses spend with residents and the training levels of those nurses. This nursing home averages 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This facility performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a facility has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can frequently be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

This nursing home also was awarded a positive score in our short-term care category. We awarded this nursing home an above average grade of B+ in this area. In determining our short-term care grades, we size up the nursing home's levels of skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists occupational therapists and other highly trained professionals. This area is frequently a useful measure of a facility's ability to rehabilitate patients. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. However, according to the data this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last item we assessed in this category is the number of patients who ultimately returned home from the nursing home. We found that 4.9 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.

We also awarded this nursing home a strong score in long-term care. This facility earned a B in this area, which turns out to be one of our more favorable scores. Nursing homes that do well in long-term care tend to be well-staffed and offer extensive hands on care to residents. In addition to looking at the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home provided the vaccine to 99.67427 percent of its residents, which is an impressive figure. Pneumonia sadly is often a life threatening ailment for nursing home patients so we prefer when a facility does not leave this to chance. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

In our final category of inspections, this nursing home received an F here. This grade was very detrimental to this facility's overall grade. When a nursing home has this poor of an inspection score, you should look for severe deficiencies on its inspection report. Severe deficiencies indicate a threat to patient safety. This nursing home was hit with one category J or K deficiency, which are among the worst deficiencies. Lastly, we need to draw your attention to the fact that this place received significant government fines in recent years of over $100,000. This usually suggests that a nursing home's poor performance has been an issue for several years.