Piedmont Post-Acute

To go along with its favorable overall grade, we awarded this place an A for our inspections rating. Inspection ratings are based on datapoints found on the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Facilities that receive favorable grades in this area typically have few deficiencies on those reports. Most importantly, these facilities generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with risks to patient safety. 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.

An additional quality feature for this facility is that it received an above average short-term care grade. In fact, this proved to be its second best category grade. In that area, we gave this facility a grade of B+. In determining our short-term care scores, we scrutinize the facility's levels of highly skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists respiratory therapists and other highly skilled individuals. This area is generally a fair assessment of a facility's rehabilitation services. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that this facility submitted data regarding its registered nurse or physical therapy staffing. Lastly, we assessed the percentage of residents who eventually returned home from this nursing home. We found that 5.6 percent of this nursing home's patients were able to return home.

The next highest grade we gave this nursing home came in the category of nursing, where we gave it a grade of B-. This wasn't quite as good as some of its other scores, but a grade in this range is not the end of the world. In calculating our nursing grades, we analyze both nursing hours and the levels of licensure of those nurses. This facility provides only 0.3 hours of nursing care per patient daily. This is a somewhat uninspiring figure which is well below average. Lastly, we also assessed some nursing quality measures. While this nursing home got dinged a bit for nursing hours, it excelled in a few of these quality measures. With less than five percent of its residents experiencing pressure ulcers, it performed well in this metric. This is typically an indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as by having a system of moving a patient at least once a day.

The final area we analyzed was long-term care. We awarded it a grade of B- in this category. This is a decent grade in this area. Our long-term care grades are crucial for individuals requiring non-healthcare services such as personal care. On top of looking at the quantity of care provided by nurses and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. Candidly, we were a bit worried that this nursing home administered the vaccine to only 66.39676 percent of its patients. On a more positive note, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. It had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.