Bethea Baptist Healthcare Center

In addition to receiving a great overall grade, this nursing home received an A+ in the area of long-term care. When nursing homes receive this type of grade in long-term care it is typically a good sign for resident care and suggests that the place is well-staffed with nurses and aids. One of the criteria we considered in addition to nursing hours was vaccines. This nursing home administered the pneumonia vaccine to 100 percent of its residents. This is a proven method to avoid unnecessary deaths for the aged 65 and up population. Lastly, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. It had only 0.03 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

This nursing home has earned near flawless health inspections recently. We awarded them an A in this area. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in determining our inspection scores. One key factor is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of these deficiencies is arguably more meaningful than the number of deficiencies, as some can be relatively insignificant. Although this place had a few deficiencies on its report, none were severe based on CMS' deficiency scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

The third area we assessed was short-term care. Adding to its elite profile, this nursing home also excelled in that category. In fact, we awarded it a of A in the area. Our short-term care ratings are meaningful for individuals in need of rehabilitation. Rehabilitation usually mandates more skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing means a broad scope of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other variations of therapy. It doesn't appear that this facility submitted information on registered nurse or physical therapist staffing. The final measure we assessed in this category is the percentage of residents that ultimately were able to return home from the facility. We found that 6.4 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.

Switching gears to the fourth category, this facility also performed admirably in our nursing category. In fact, we awarded it a B+ for that area. This topped off a very impressive report card. Our nursing rating weighs a variety of subcategories. The most heavily weighted variable is the amount of time nurses spend with residents. This nursing home provides 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality measures and this nursing home excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any place the nation in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as having a system of moving patients even once per day.