South Peninsula Hospital Ltc

Located in Homer, Alaska, South Peninsula Hospital Ltc is the sole nursing home we identified in the city. This nursing home was given an A- overall, which is one of the most impressive grades we offer. A grade of this caliber requires first-rate scores across the board. We also want to point out that this facility is located in a hospital. Typically, this indicates that more intensive healthcare services are available. The best part of this facility's strong profile was its nursing score. Nursing grades are discussed in the next paragraph

We also wanted to emphasize the fact that this facility excelled in our nursing rating. We awarded them an impressive grade of A+ in this category. The nursing rating includes a host of subcategories. The most important one is the quantity of hours nurses spend with residents. This facility provided 7.8 hours of nursing care per patient each day, which is among the higher figures in the country. A significant percentage of those hours were provided by registered nurses, which are one of the more skilled levels of nurses. We are very impressed by these figures. On top of offering high levels of nursing care, this nursing home also excelled in the quality-based metrics we looked at. It performed as well as any facility in Alaska in the area of minimizing its residents' major falls and pressure ulcers.

This facility also performed well in the category of short-term care, where it received a score of A. Only a select group of facilities received a better grade in this area. Short-term care grades are often used to measure a facility's performance with rehabilitation. In order to provide highly graded rehabilitation services, facilities generally must offer better levels of highly skilled nursing services. These types of services include registered nurses, physical therapists, speech therapists and other licensed professionals. When we assessed this facility's nursing hours, we found it offered substantially more care from registered nurses than most nursing homes. The last item we assessed in this category is the percentage of patients who were able to leave the facility and return home. We found that 0 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home.

This facility is also above average in the area of long-term care, where it was awarded a grade of B. It outperformed most nursing homes in this area. Long-term care ratings in this range generally require both around the clock care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine medical care. In addition to really impressive nursing hour statistics, this nursing home's vaccination data was first-rate also. Indeed, this facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients for pneumonia. Finally, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. With only 1.58 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, this nursing home has fewer hospitalizations than most nursing homes.

Moving on to inspections, it appears this facility has earned quality inspections in recent years as well. We gave it a B in this category. Inspection scores weigh a host of factors found on a nursing home's inspection reports. One key criteria we look at is the number and severity of deficiencies. Places with higher scores in this area typically have few severe deficiencies. Fortunately, although this place had some minor dings on its inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you the government inspectors didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. The fact that the deficiencies were relatively minor made us feel better about this inspection report.