Ascension St. Vincent's Southside Hospital

To go along with its strong overall grade, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A+ for our inspections rating. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in computing our inspection grades. One key factor is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of the deficiencies is usually more meaningful than the quantity of deficiencies, as some of these are quite insignificant. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Adding to its top-shelf resume, this nursing home also performed well in our short-term care category. In fact, we awarded it a grade of A for that area. In the category of short-term care, we endeavor to evaluate measures of a nursing home's rehabilitation services. We assess a facility's skilled nursing services, including the ones performed by registered nurses and physical therapists. It does not appear that this nursing home submitted information on registered nurse or physical therapist staffing. Finally, we considered the percentage of residents who returned home from this facility. We found that 5.8 percent of this nursing home's patients were able to return home.

This nursing home also received a strong nursing score. In fact, we awarded it an above average grade of B+ in this area. When computing our nursing grades, we assess both nursing hours and the training levels of those nurses. This nursing home provides 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 place Florida in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can typically be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as by having a protocol of moving patients at least once a day.

Switching gears to our next area, this facility was awarded a very strong long-term care rating. We awarded it a grade of B+ in that area, wrapping up one of our finer report cards. For prospective residents seeking a permanent place to live rather than skilled nursing, long-term care is an important category. After considering the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we then looked at the facility's vaccination statistics. It does not appear that this facility submitted information about vaccinations. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.