Carolina Bay Healthcare Center of Wilmington

On top of receiving an elite overall score, this nursing home earned an A+ inspection grade. This is based on its recent inspection reports. An A+ in this category is one of the best complements we can pay to a facility. Perhaps the most critical factor we consider in calculating our inspection scores is deficiencies. These deficiencies are found on a facility's recent inspection reports. Nursing homes with better grades in this category typically avoided the more severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. 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. Even some of the best nursing homes receive an occasional ding on their inspection report.

This facility also was given a very impressive short-term care grade. Indeed, this is this nursing home's second most impressive category score. In that category, this facility received a score of A. In our short-term care assessment, we endeavor to craft a valuable gauge for rehabilitation services. In this process, we look at a nursing home's levels of skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as speech therapy. One of this place's strengths is registered nurse hours. This facility offers more care from registered nurses to its residents than most facilities. The final measure we assessed in this category is the percentage of patients that eventually returned home from the nursing home. This place performed as well as just about any nursing home in North Carolina with 67.1 percent of its patients returning home.

Another one of this facility's impressive category grades came in the area of nursing care. We awarded them one of our better scores in that area, with a grade of B+. The nursing rating is based on several factors, most of which are based on quantities of nurse staffing. This nursing home provided 6 hours of nursing care per resident daily. This was one of the more impressive figures we found. Furthermore, we found that a significant portion of this care was provided by registered nurses, which are highly skilled nurses. These are both really impressive figures. On top of looking at levels of nursing care, we also looked at a few quality-based metrics in determining our nursing grades. These include minimizing residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. We look at these statistics as predictive measures of the quality of nursing care provided, since better care tends to reduce these problems.

The last area we scored is long-term care, in which this nursing home was given a B-. While this ended up being its worst category rating, this is still a middle of the pack score. Long-term care grades focus on a nursing home's assistance with daily living rather than the skilled nursing and healthcare services that are critical to a rehabilitation facility. After looking at the very respectable amount of nursing care provided by this nursing home, we turned to the nursing home's vaccination statistics. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients against pneumonia, which is higher than the average nursing home. This combination proved to be successful as this place keeps its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.