Tuscany Gardens

The primary reason this turned out to be a decent nursing home is that it earned an elite inspection grade. In fact, its inspection grade was far superior to its overall score. In our inspections category, we gave this facility a grade of A-. Perhaps the most critical factor we consider in determining our inspection grades is deficiencies. Deficiencies are found on a nursing home's inspection reports. Places with higher grades in this area most likely dodged the more severe deficiencies involving health risks or even death. This place received 2 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe. This means that the inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies to be an immediate threat to patient safety or health. A couple of minor deficiencies shouldn't stop you from considering a nursing home.

In addition, we awarded this nursing home a grade of B in our short-term care category. This happens to be one of our more impressive scores. In crafting these short-term care grades, we analyze the facility's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. Our objective is to formulate a scale for comparing the rehabilitation services of different nursing homes. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Lastly, we assessed the percentage of patients that who were able to eventually return home from this nursing home. We found that 5.7 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home.

The third highest area we awarded this nursing home in any category came in the category of long-term care, where we gave it a B-. In our long-term care rating, we focus more on the sheer volume of care provided by a facility, as well as a series of qualitative statistics. Once we assessed the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination statistics. Unfortunately, this nursing home vaccinated just 81.11702 percent of its patients against pneumonia. Nevertheless, this facility was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

Switching gears to the last area, we gave this nursing home a grade of D in the area of nursing. This was the nursing home's least impressive category grade. Our nursing grade assesses the nursing home's nurse staffing levels. We factor in both the levels of skill of the nurses and the amount of time spent with patients. This facility provided a meager 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident on a daily basis. This is a very low total compared to most nursing homes. On top of receiving below average scores for nursing hours, this nursing home was a bit less impressive in some of the quality-based metrics we looked at in computing our nursing ratings. We looked at the percent of patients suffering pressure ulcers and found this facility was at roughly 150 percent of the national average in this metric. This is a bad sign when you consider that many pressure ulcers are believed to be preventable with better nursing care. Unfortunately, this statistic pulled down this nursing home's nursing score substantially.