U.S. News releases best nursing homes ratings
The majority of nursing homes in Central Florida received average ratings in the 10th annual U.S. News & World Report Best Nursing Homes report, which was released on Tuesday.
Only six — Westminster Baldwin Park, the Mayflower Healthcare Center in Winter Park, Skytop View Rehabilitation Center in Clermont, Village on the Green in Longwood, Freedom Pointe at The Villages Rehabilitation, and Healthcare and Club Health and Rehabilitation Center at The Villa at the Villages, received a 5 — the highest rating — as their overall rating.
Of the 696 nursing homes evaluated in Florida, 51 were rated as high performing.
“These ratings help individuals and their families begin their search for senior care and should be used in consultation with a
medical professional and in-depth on-site visits,” said Kim Castro, editor and chief content officer of U.S. News, in a statement.
About 1.4 million people, including one in 10 seniors 85 years and older wake up in a U.S. nursing home, according to U.S. News.
The report takes into account several measures, including safety, health inspections, staffing and care, using data collected and published by the federal government.
The report also measures the performance of nursing homes based on short-term rehabilitation, which assesses patients’ ability to return home, ER visits and nursing staffing, and longterm care, which takes into account data on staffing, success in preventing ER visits, hospitalization and pneumonia vaccination rates.
The organization’s report evaluated more than 15,000 nursing homes in the country. About one-fifth — 2,969— earned the Best Nursing Home designation. These are nursing homes that were rated ‘high performing’ in either overall rating or short-stay rehabilitation rating, and didn’t rate worse than average in long-term rehabilitation rating.
In addition to U.S. News, you can use the Nursing Home Compare website by Medicare to evaluate nursing homes. The site provides information about overall ratings, health inspections, staffing and quality measures.
According to Nursing Home Compare, the three top-rated nursing homes in Orlando are Westminster Winter Park, The Gardens at Depugh in Winter Park and Consulate Health Care of Kissimmee.
The three lowest-rated nursing homes include Rio Pinar Health Care in Orlando, Consulate Health Care at West Altamonte, and Ocoee Health Care Center in Ocoee, according to the latest available data.