Accura Healthcare of Cherokee

In addition to faring well overall, this nursing home also earned a nearly flawless inspection report. Consequently, it received one of our highest scores in that area with an A+. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in determining our inspection grades. One critical factor is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of the deficiencies is arguably more meaningful than the quantity of deficiencies, as some of these are quite insignificant. Fortunately, although this place had some minor dings on its government inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those found in categories G through L. This tells you that the inspectors did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

One of the other reasons we rated this facility so highly is that it earned a very impressive nursing score. This turned out to be its second best category grade. In that category, we gave this nursing home an A-. The nursing rating weighs a host of datapoints. The most important factor is the amount of time nurses spent with patients. This facility provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This nursing home 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 prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

Adding to its fine assessment, this nursing home also was awarded a superb long-term care grade, with a grade of A-. When nursing homes receive a score in this range in long-term care it generally means it has plenty of staff and is an overall good place to reside on a permanent basis. In addition to assessing the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home provided the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents, which is what we like to see. Pneumonia can be a dangerous ailment for nursing home residents so we prefer when a nursing home does not leave this to chance. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. It had only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

The final area we graded turned out to be this nursing home's worst area. Nevertheless, even its weakest link would likely be a highlight for many facilities. We awarded it an above average grade of B for short-term care. With our short-term care category, we try to forge a sound measure for rehabilitation services. In this process, we look at the nursing home's levels of highly-skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as speech therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the information they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Lastly, we assessed the percentage of patients that ultimately were able to return home from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home.