Autumn Care of Saluda

This nursing home earned a solid overall grade as described above, but we really wanted to emphasize its nearly flawless inspections in recent years. We gave them an A in this category. Arguably the most critical factor we consider in determining our inspection ratings is deficiencies. Deficiencies can be found on a facility's recent inspection reports. Nursing homes with better grades in this category typically dodged the most severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. While this place had a few minor dings on its inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones found in categories G through L. This tells you the government inspectors did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. We should note that deficiency-free inspection reports are rare in the industry.

This facilities next most favorable category is short-term care. We awarded it a B- in this area. This is basically a middle of the pack grade in this category. Our short-term care ratings are meaningful for people seeking rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically utilizes higher levels of skilled nursing services. This includes a broad range of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other forms of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. Not every nursing home employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, based on the data this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Finally, we considered the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 5 percent of this facility's patients returned home. At most facilities, closer to half of their patients are able to return home so this figure is below average.

This facilities third most favorable category was long-term care. We awarded it a B- in this category. This is essentially a middle of the road grade in this area. Our long-term care grade is typically used to assess a facility's performance as a traditional convalescent home, as opposed to focusing more on the skilled nursing services provided by a skilled nursing facility. One of the datapoints we considered on top of nurse's aid hours was vaccines. Fortunately, this nursing home administered the pneumonia vaccine to 100 percent of its patients. Lastly, this facility was also able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had only 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

Turning to our last category, this facility was awarded a B- in nursing, which we consider to be an acceptable rating. Our nursing rating assesses the nursing home's level of nurse staffing. We factor in both the levels of licensure of the nurses and the number of hours spent with residents. This place averages just 0.3 hours of nursing care per patient on a daily basis, which is a very low figure. Lastly, we also looked at some nursing quality-based metrics. Although this facility got dinged a bit for its nursing hours per resident, it excelled in some of these quality-based measures. With fewer than five percent of its patients sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed well in this metric. This is often a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as having a system of turning a patient more frequently.