Tarpon Bayou Center

The primary reason this ended up being a decent nursing home is that it received an excellent inspection score. In fact, its inspection grade was far better than its overall grade. In the inspections category, we gave it a grade of A+. Inspection grades weigh several factors, including deficiencies and substantiated complaints. You can learn more about each of these items by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. Although this facility had a few deficiencies on its government inspection report, none of them were serious based on CMS' scale. The fact that the deficiencies were relatively minor made us feel better about this inspection report.

One of this nursing home's better category grades was in the area of long-term care. This ended up being its second most respectable category. In that area, we gave this nursing home a B-. For prospective residents looking for a permanent place to live rather than rehabilitation, long-term care is a very important category. In addition to looking at the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients. Finally, this place was also able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

One of this facility's better category grades was in the area of nursing care. In that area, we gave this facility a grade of B-. Nursing ratings are tied to quality and quantity of nursing care. This facility provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a relatively low total compared to most other facilities. Lastly, nursing grades also consider quality-based metrics, such as avoiding major falls. Despite not having the highest total nursing hours, this place actually performed admirably in the metric of preventing major falls. This is typically a reliable indicator that a nursing home has sufficient quality controls in place. Some falls can be avoided if a nursing home provides enough nurses aids to assist its residents.

This nursing home's weakest category is short-term care, which is the last category we assessed. In this area, we gave this nursing home a grade of just D. In our short-term care score, we strive to forge a meaningful measure for rehabilitation. In doing so, we analyze a facility's scope of skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as respiratory therapy. Unfortunately, this nursing home was below average in terms of its quantity of physical therapy and registered nurse hours provided to its residents based on the measures we assessed. The last statistic we considered in this area is the number of residents who ultimately returned home from the nursing home. This nursing home struggled quite a bit in this metric as well, with just 3.3 percent of its patients returning home. This was well below average.