Carolina Bay Healthcare Center of Wilmington

On top of being a strong facility overall, it also received A+ health inspections in recent years. Its inspections were nearly flawless. These inspection scores weigh several factors, including deficiencies, substantiated complaints and federal fines. You can learn more about each of these issues by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. 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.

We also wanted to alert you to the fact that this nursing home performed remarkably in our short-term care category. We gave them a dominant score of A+ in this area. In determining our short-term care grades, we size up a facility's levels of skilled nursing services, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists occupational therapists and other types of therapists. This rating is frequently a meaningful measure of the facility's rehabilitation. Fortunately, it appear that this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not all nursing homes employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Finally, we looked at the number of residents who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 6 percent of this facility's patients returned home.

This facility also was awarded a top-shelf long-term care grade. In fact, this turned out to be its third strongest category grade. In that area, we gave this facility a grade of A. Facilities that receive this kind of score in this category typically provide consistent 24/7 care to ensure patients are kept in good health. After we finished looking at the amount of care provided by nurses, we next considered the facility's vaccination records. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents against pneumonia, which is an impressive figure. Pneumonia can be a deadly illness for nursing home residents so we like it when a facility doesn't roll the dice on this issue. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

Switching gears to the last area, this nursing home received a high-end nursing rating. We gave it an A- in that category, rounding out a straight A profile. Our nursing score weighs several factors, most of which are based on quantities of nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0.6 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This facility performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a nursing home has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can often be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.