The Villages Rehabilitation and Nursing Center

On top of earning a strong overall score, this facility also received excellent government inspections recently. We gave it one of our highest scores in that area, with a grade of A. Arguably the most significant factor we look at in determining our inspection ratings is deficiencies. Deficiencies are found on a facility's inspection reports. Facilities with better scores in this area most likely avoided the more severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. Fortunately, although this nursing home had a few minor dings on its government inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you CMS did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. We should note that deficiency-free inspection reports are rare in the industry.

This nursing home also was elite in the category of long-term care, where it received a grade of A-. Very few nursing homes performed better in this area. Facilities that receive this kind of score in long-term care tend to provide consistent 24/7 care to make sure residents are kept in good health. In addition to assessing the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility gave the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents, which is very impressive. Pneumonia is often a dangerous ailment for nursing home patients so we like it when a nursing home does not leave its residents vulnerable. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

Turning the page to our next category, this facility received a top-shelf short-term care score. In fact, we gave it a grade of A- in this category. In computing our short-term care grades, we assess the nursing home's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, speech therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. Our goal is to devise a scale for comparing the rehabilitation services of different nursing homes. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, based on the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final measure we looked at in this area is the percentage of patients who were able to leave the facility and return home. We found that 5.1 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home.

Turning to the fourth category, this nursing home also excelled in our nursing category. In fact, we gave it a grade of B+ for that area. This topped off a first-rate profile. There are many criteria included in this area. Most of these factors reflect the quantity of nurse staffing. This facility provided 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality-based metrics 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 the country in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as employing a policy of moving a resident even once per day.