Cottage of the Shoals

On top of being a strong nursing home overall, this place especially excelled in our inspections category, where it earned a grade of A+. Few nursing homes fared better in this category. Perhaps the most significant factor we consider in calculating our inspection grades is deficiencies. These deficiencies are found on a nursing home's inspection reports. Places with better scores in this area most likely dodged the most severe deficiencies involving things like patient abuse. While this nursing home had a few minor dings on its inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means the government inspectors did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Remember that deficiency-free inspections are uncommon in the industry.

This facility received a very good nursing grade this year as well. It received one of our better scores in that category with a grade of B. Nursing scores are mostly based on the facility's level of nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed some nursing quality-based metrics in determining our nursing grades. This nursing home performed very well in terms of avoiding major falls and pressure ulcers. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

This nursing home is also above average in the area of short-term care, where it received a grade of B. It outperformed most nursing homes in this area. In forming these short-term care grades, we assess the nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. The purpose is to devise a scale for comparing the rehabilitation services of various nursing homes. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last datapoint we looked at in this area is the number of residents who were able to return home from the facility. We found that 4.8 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.

The next area we looked at is long-term care. This nursing home received a C for the category. In crafting these long-term care ratings, we assess the facility's personal care services. Once we assessed the volume of care provided by nurses, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination data. Candidly, we were a bit worried that this facility vaccinated a relatively low 70.61069 percent of its patients for pneumonia. Nevertheless, this place was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.