Candler Skilled Nursing Unit

To pair with its strong overall grade, we gave this facility an A+ for inspections. Perhaps the most critical factor we consider in determining our inspection grades is deficiencies. Deficiencies are found on a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Facilities with better scores in this category typically avoided the most severe deficiencies involving things like patient abuse. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

In addition, this facility was given strong marks in the area of short-term care. As a result, it was given one of our highest grades in that category with a grade of A+. Our short-term care grades are critical for individuals needing rehabilitation. Rehabilitation usually requires higher levels of highly-skilled nursing. This means a vast spectrum of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other forms of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. However, according to the information they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Lastly, we looked at the number of residents who were able to return home from this nursing home. We found that 6.6 percent of this nursing home's patients were able to return home.

Another reason we rated this nursing home so highly is that it received an A+ nursing grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this category. Our nursing rating weighs a number of datapoints. The most important factor is the quantity of hours nurses spend with patients. This nursing home averages 0.7 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality measures and this facility excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any facility Georgia in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as having a system of moving patients at least once a day.

Turning to our fourth area, this facility also excelled in our long-term care category. In fact, we gave it an A for that category. This wrapped up truly elite profile. Long-term care scores of this caliber generally require both around the clock care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine healthcare services. After assessing the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we next considered the facility's vaccination record. We weren't able to find information about this nursing home's vaccination rates. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.