Stratford Court of Palm Harbor

On top of being a first rate facility overall, this facility performed well in our inspections category, where it earned an A+. Very few places performed as well in this area. Our inspection grades are tied to pieces of information located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Nursing homes that excel in this area have very few deficiencies on those reports. Most importantly, these places generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with endangerment of patients. While this nursing home had some deficiencies on its report, none were major deficiencies based on CMS' scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

We also wanted to emphasize the fact that this facility fared very well in our short-term care rating. We awarded them a dominant grade of A+ in this category. Our short-term care scores are considered to be more meaningful for residents in need of a nursing home for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally requires higher levels of highly-skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes not just nursing services, but also physical and occupational therapy, as well as other types of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. However, based on the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final datapoint we considered in this area is the number of residents that ultimately returned home from the nursing home. We found that 6.8 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.

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. Our nursing grade looks at the nursing home's nurse staffing levels. We weigh both the levels of licensure of those nurses as well as the amount of time spent with residents. This particular nursing home provided 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This place performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a place has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can frequently be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

Turning to our fourth category, this facility received an extremely favorable long-term care grade. We awarded it an A in this category, rounding out a straight A profile. Facilities that do well in long-term care tend to be well-staffed and provide extensive hands on care to residents. After assessing the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we next considered the nursing home's vaccination data. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients for pneumonia, which is far higher than the majority of nursing homes. Lastly, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.