Anderson County Hospital Ltcu

One of the many reasons this turned out to be a quality nursing home is that it received an A+ inspection grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this critical category. Perhaps the most significant factor we consider in calculating our inspection grades is deficiencies. Deficiencies are found on a facility's recent inspection reports. Places with higher scores in this area most likely dodged the most severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. Fortunately, although this facility had a few minor dings on its inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those labeled as categories G through L. This means 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.

This nursing home also received an A+ for its nursing grade. Our nursing score is primarily associated with a nursing home's level of nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality measures and this facility excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any facility the nation in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can typically be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as having a system of turning residents more frequently.

Contributing to its fine profile, this facility also was given an excellent long-term care score, with a score of A. In a long-term care setting, the facility's primary objective is to keep patients healthy and safe. This is different than skilled nursing or short-term care where the goal is to rehabilitate patients. After considering the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we next considered the facility's vaccination records. This facility vaccinated 89.53488 percent of its residents for pneumonia, which is a few points less than we were hoping for but still a reasonably acceptable percentage. 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 a remarkably low figure.

Moving on to the next area, this nursing home also performed well in the short-term care category. In fact, we gave it a grade of B+ in this area. This topped off a very strong report card. Short-term care scores are important for individuals requiring rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically utilizes higher levels of skilled nursing services. This means a broad range of services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, as well as other types of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. However, according to the information they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final item we looked at in this area is the number of residents who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients were able to return home.