Carlyle Senior Care of Fountain Inn

On top of being a strong facility overall, this place really excelled in our inspections category, where it received a grade of A. Not many facilities performed better in that area. Perhaps the most important factor we look at in determining our inspection scores is deficiencies. These deficiencies are found on a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Facilities with better grades in this category typically dodged the most severe deficiencies involving things like patient abuse. Unfortunately, we weren't able to locate deficiency counts for this nursing home. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Another one of this facility's quality category scores came in the area of long-term care. We awarded them one of our more positive scores in that area, with a grade of B+. Facilities that receive this kind of score in this category typically provide consistent around the clock care to ensure patients are kept in good health. In addition to considering the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility administered the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients, which is very impressive. Pneumonia sadly can be a dangerous illness for nursing home patients so we like it when a facility does not leave this to chance. Finally, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. It had only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

This nursing home was given a favorable short-term care score as well. We awarded it one of our better scores in that category with a grade of B+. In determining our short-term care grades, we look at the facility's levels of highly skilled nursing services, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists speech therapists and other types of therapists. This rating is considered to be a fair assessment of a nursing home's ability to rehabilitate patients. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not every nursing home employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, according to the data they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final item we assessed in this area is the number of residents that eventually returned home from the facility. We found that 5 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.

The last area we graded is nursing. This facility received a favorable nursing score this year, with a grade of B. This facility really didn't have any weaknesses. Our nursing grade analyzes the nursing home's level of nurse staffing. We look at both the levels of skill of the nurses as well as the number of hours spent with residents. This facility provided 0.3 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 place South Carolina in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as by having a policy of turning a resident even once per day.