Autumn Care of Saluda Center

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 facility also was given a positive long-term care grade. Indeed, we awarded it a grade of B in that area, which is one of our better. Long-term care grades in this range generally require both 24/7 care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine healthcare services. Once we looked at the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we turned to the nursing home's vaccination records. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents against pneumonia. Vaccines are critical to keeping patients out of the hospital. Finally, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. It had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

Next, we looked at the nursing category where we awarded this nursing home a grade of B-, which is a decent grade. We scrutinized the qualifications of nurses working for the facility, in addition to the quantity of time the nurses were with residents, in determining our grade in this area. This facility provides 0.3 hours of nursing care per patient each day. This is a lower figure than we are used to seeing. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality measures. Although this nursing home got docked a bit for nursing hours, it actually excelled in some of these quality metrics. With fewer than five percent of its residents suffering from pressure ulcers, it fared well in this area. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as by employing a policy of moving residents more frequently.

The next category we analyzed is short-term care. We gave it a grade of C in that area. This is a fair grade in this category. Short-term care grades are often employed to score a facility's performance with rehabilitation. In order to provide highly graded rehabilitation services, facilities generally must offer higher levels of skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes registered nurses, physical therapists, speech therapists and other highly skilled individuals. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not all nursing homes employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the information they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Lastly, we assessed the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 4.5 percent of this facility's patients returned home. At most nursing homes, closer to half of their residents are able to return home so this figure is below average.