Cherokee Center

In addition to earning a strong overall score, this facility performed even better in the area of inspections which is based on the facility's recent government inspections. In fact, we awarded it an A- for this category, which is one of our highest grades. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in determining these inspection ratings. One of those factors is health deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of these deficiencies is arguably more meaningful than the quantity of deficiencies, as some end up being relatively minor. This nursing home received 2 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none were considered to be severe deficiencies. This means that CMS didn't deem any of the deficiencies to be an immediate risk to patient health or safety. We should note that deficiency-free inspection reports are rare in this industry.

This facility is also above average in the area of long-term care, where it was given a score of B. It outperformed most nursing homes in this category. Nursing homes that do well in long-term care tend to provide residents with closer supervision and stay on top of routine medical care. Once we assessed the quantity of care provided by nurses, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination data. This facility vaccinated 98.106064 percent of its patients against pneumonia, which is very impressive. Pneumonia tragically can be a life or death ailment for nursing home patients so we strongly prefer when a nursing home does not leave this to chance. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0.03 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

In addition, this facility also received favorable nursing grades this year. In fact, we awarded them one of our better scores in that area, with a grade of B. Our nursing score focuses on the facility's nurse staffing levels. We look at both the levels of training of the nurses as well as the quantity of hours spent with residents. This nursing home averages 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics and this place 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 country in this category. 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 protocol of moving a patient even once per day.

The next area we graded is short-term care. We gave it a B- in that category. This is not a bad grade in this area. In determining our short-term care ratings, we analyze a facility's levels of skilled nursing services, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists occupational therapists and other highly skilled individuals. This grade is considered to be a meaningful assessment of a nursing home's ability to rehabilitate patients. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. However, according to the information they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Finally, we looked at the number of residents who were able to return home from this nursing home. We found that 4.6 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home. This figure was actually well below average.