C M Tucker Nursing Care Center / Roddey

One of the many reasons this turned out to be a great nursing home is that it received an A+ long-term care grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this category. When nursing homes receive a score in this range in this category it generally means it's well-staffed and is a quality place to live on a permanent basis. In addition to looking at the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients, which is what we like to see. Pneumonia is too frequently a deadly condition for nursing home residents so we like it when a facility does not leave its residents vulnerable. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

In addition, this facility received high marks in the area of nursing. As a result, it received one of our highest grades in that category with a score of A+. Nursing scores are largely tied to the nursing home's nurse staffing. This particular nursing home provided 0.6 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality measures 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 state in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can typically be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as by having a policy of turning residents more frequently.

Compounding its remarkable profile, this nursing home also was given an excellent short-term care score, with a grade of A. With our short-term care grade, we seek to create a meaningful measure for rehabilitation. In doing so, we analyze the nursing home's levels of highly-skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as speech therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. However, based on the information they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Lastly, we considered the number of residents who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this facility's residents returned home.

In addition, this facility also earned a virtually flawless government inspection report. As a result, it earned one of our highest grades in that category with a grade of A-. With this impressive grade, this place is one of the few facilities in South Carolina to receive straight A's. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in computing our inspection scores. One of those factors is health deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of the deficiencies is arguably more important than the number of deficiencies, as some can be quite minor. This particular nursing home received 4 deficiencies on its inspection report. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.