Blue Ridge Health and Rehabilitation Center

To pair with its relatively modest overall grade, we gave this facility an A- for its inspection grade. This grade is far better than its overall rating. Our inspection ratings account for a host of factors included in a facility's inspection reports. One key criteria we weigh heavily is the number and severity of deficiencies. Nursing homes with better scores in this area tend to have few severe deficiencies. This facility was assessed 2 deficiencies on its inspection report, but fortunately none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe. This tells you that the government inspectors didn't deem any of these deficiencies to create an immediate threat to patient health or safety. A couple minor deficiencies should not lead you to cross a nursing home off your list.

This nursing home performed well in the area of nursing. In fact, we awarded it an B- for that category, which is one of our best grades. The nursing rating is based on many datapoints, most of which are associated with nursing hours. This place provides only 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a somewhat concerning figure which is well below the national average. Lastly, while this nursing home got docked a bit for its nursing hours per resident, it excelled in some of our quality-based measures. With less than five percent of its residents suffering from pressure ulcers, it fared remarkably well in this statistic.

This nursing home's next best category is long-term care. We awarded it a grade of C in this category. This is essentially a slightly below average score in this area. Long-term care scores are important for prospective residents looking for non-healthcare services such as personal care. In addition to assessing the quantity of care provided by nurses and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. We were a bit worried that this nursing home vaccinated a relatively low 82.25108 percent of its patients. Nevertheless, this nursing home keeps its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

Switching gears to the next area, we gave this facility a D in our short-term care category. This was the nursing home's weakest category grade. Our short-term care ratings are vital for patients in need of rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically requires higher levels of highly-skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes a broad range of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other forms of therapy. Not surprisingly, we found that this facility offers substantially less registered nurse and physical therapist hours per patient than the typical nursing home. Lastly, we considered the number of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. This definitely wasn't a strength for this nursing home. We found that just 4.5 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home. At most facilities, about half of their patients are able to return home so this is well below average.