Blue Ridge Healthcare of Buchanan
144 Depot Street, Buchanan GA 30113 · (770) 646-5512 · 93.16% estimated occupancy 1Updated: Aug 1, 2020 · By Sara Levinsohn
Blue Ridge Healthcare of Buchanan is in Buchanan, Georgia. This city has a total of 6,218 people. This nursing home was given an F, which is just about as bad as it gets in our grading scheme. If you are not happy with this facility's poor overall grade, you may find your options to be limited in Buchanan. The city has just one other nursing home. If you aren't deterred by this nursing home's report card, you can continue reading to find out about its category scores. Inspection grades are discussed in the next section.
Additional Details:
Accepts Medicare 1 :
Accepts Medicaid 1 : 60 Beds
CCRC :
For profit - Corporation
Resident Council:
Family Council:
Medical Staff Hours Per Patient (2019)
Facility Inspections
Although we gave this facility a terrible overall score, we gave it a grade of A+ for our inspections rating. This score is far more impressive than the facility's overall grade. Inspection ratings take several factors into consideration, including deficiencies, substantiated complaints and federal fines. You can learn more about each of these factors by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. While this nursing home had a few minor dings on its government inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are found in categories G, H, I, J, K and 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. A few minor deficiencies aren't the end of the world.
Short-term Care Quality
This nursing home wound up receiving a a terrible score in our short-term care category. It was given a lowly F in this category. In computing our short-term care ratings, we size up a facility's levels of highly skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists occupational therapists and other highly trained professionals. This score is often a useful assessment of the facility's ability to rehabilitate patients. Not surprisingly based on its grade in this area, this nursing home was well below average in one of the two key staffing areas we looked at. The facility provided substantially fewer registered nurse hours per patient than most other nursing homes. Finally, we considered the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. This definitely was not a strength for this facility. We found that just 37.4 percent of this facility's patients returned home. At most facilities, around half of their patients are able to return home so this is well below average.
Long-term Care Quality
The third category we analyzed was long-term care. This facility's received an unfortunate long-term care score where it was given an F. Facilities that do not score well in long-term care often do not provide as much nursing care and also may be struggling in some of the areas of routine medical care we assessed. After we finished assessing the amount of care provided by nurses, we turned to the facility's vaccination record. Frankly, we were a bit concerned this facility vaccinated only 80.904526 percent of its residents for pneumonia. Surprisingly, this place was not as bad as we expected at keeping its residents out of the hospital. Although it had 1.83 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, its risk adjusted statistic wasn't bad since it had more complicated patients.
Nurse Quality
Turning to our fourth category, this nursing home really didn't perform very well in this category either. With a rock bottom grade of F in nursing, this is just about as as uninspiring as it gets. There are numerous factors within this grade. Most of the factors are tied to staffing levels. This nursing home provides 2.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a much lower figure than we are used to seeing. In addition to ranking below average in nursing hours per resident, this place also had poor scores in the quality-based metrics we looked at in computing our nursing scores. We looked at the percentage of patients sustaining major falls and pressure ulcers. This facility was at about 150 percent of the national average in both of these statistics. This is likely a bad sign when you consider that many falls and bed sores are preventable with better nursing care. These metrics pulled down this facility's nursing rating quite a bit.
Overall Rating Over Time
Compared to national and state averages across all facilities.
Blue Ridge Healthcare of Buchanan Quality Metrics
Minimizes Pressure Ulcers
This indicates the percentage of residents that have had a pressure ulcer. Pressure ulcers are considered to be an indicator of nursing care at a nursing home. Pressure ulcers, also called bed sores, are often the result of patients not being moved frequently enough.
Percent of Patients with Pressure Ulcers
Lower is Better
Minimizes Serious Falls
This tells you the percent of residents who suffered from a fall leading to serious injury.
Percent of Patients with Serious Falls
Lower is Better
Minimizes Urinary Tract Infections
This is the percent of patients who sustained a urinary tract infection. These infections could be associated with insufficient hygiene.
Percent of Patients with UTIs
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Psychotic Medication
This indicates the percentage of patients who were given antipsychotic medications. While antipsychotic drugs may be vital to many residents, it is important to make sure these drugs are being used appropriately. In limited cases, excessive reliance on these medications may indicate that a nursing home is using these medications to control patient behavior.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Anxiety Medication
This is a measure of the percent of long-term residents which are given antianxiety drugs. These drugs are typically given to patients suffering from anxiety and depression.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Managing Depression Among Residents
This metric is a measure of the percent of long-term stay patients who are exhibiting depressive symptoms.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriate Vaccine Usage
This metric is a measure of the percent of long-term care residents who have received the flu and pneumonia vaccines. Respiratory viruses can be fatal for nursing home patients, making these vaccines vital to patient care.
Percent of Patients
Higher is Better
Residents Maintain Autonomy
This is a measure of the percentage of long-term stay residents that needed additional assistance with activities of daily living over time. Activities of daily living include activities such as dressing and taking a bath.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Ability to Keep Residents Mobile
This datapoint is a measure of the percentage of long-term patients who maintained mobility. Some argue that the ability to move around is important for residents' mental and physical health.
Percentage of Residents
Higher is Better
Hospitalizations
This datapoint is a measure of the number of hospitalizations per thousand days of patient care. Minimizing hospitalizations is key to the physical well-being of residents.
Hospitalizations per 1,000 resident days
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: Rehospitalizations
This is a measure of the number of times residents are rehospitalized per 1,000 days of short-term resident care. Keeping residents out of the hospital during rehabilitation is key to restoring the physical well-being of residents.
Percentage of Residents Rehospitalized
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: ER Visits
This tells you the number of emergency room visits per thousand days of short-term care. There is generally a correlation between fewer emergency room visits and the quality of nursing home care.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: Facilitates Functional Improvement
This tells you the percent of short-term care residents that experienced functional improvements, such as enhanced ability to perform activities of daily living.
Percentage of Resident
Higher is Better