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 was given a strong short-term care grade as well. We gave it one of our better grades in that category with a score of B+. Our short-term care grades are based in part on the nursing home's quantity of skilled skilled healthcare professionals. This means a broad spectrum of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, not to mention other forms of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. However, according to the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final metric we considered in this area is the number of patients that eventually returned home from the facility. We found that 5.4 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.

In addition, this facility also received favorable nursing grades this year. In fact, we awarded them one of our better scores in that area, with a grade of B. We looked at the qualifications of nurses at the facility, in addition to the quantity of hours those nurses spent with patients, in computing our grade in this area. This nursing home averages 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, we also assessed some nursing quality measures in determining our nursing grades. This facility performed very well when it comes to avoiding major falls and pressure ulcers. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

The last category we analyzed was long-term care. We awarded it a C in this category. This is a perfectly acceptable grade in this area. If you are seeking services other than rehabilitation, you should take a close look at each facility's long-term care ratings. On top of assessing the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility administered the vaccine to 66.666664 percent of its patients. This is multiple points lower than average. Nevertheless, this facility was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.