Laurens Care Center

On top of performing well in its overall grade, this nursing home performed at an even higher level in the area of inspections. In fact, it received a nearly flawless inspection report this year. As a result, it received one of our highest grades in that category with a score of A. Inspection ratings weigh several factors included in a nursing home's inspection reports. One key criteria we consider is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with better scores in this category tend to have very few severe deficiencies. While this nursing home had a few minor dings on its government inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means that the government inspectors didn't deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Keep in mind that deficiency-free inspections are rare in this 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+. Our nursing grade is largely tied to the facility's level of nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, we also assessed some nursing quality measures in determining our nursing grades. This nursing home performed very well in the area of minimizing its residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

The third best category we awarded this nursing home in any category came in the category of long-term care, where we awarded it a grade of B-. In the category of long-term care, we assess the amount of services offered by a facility, rather than more healthcare-oriented services. In addition to assessing the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. Candidly, we were a bit alarmed this nursing home administered the vaccine to only 90.17857 percent of its patients. Nevertheless, this nursing home excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

Our next category is short-term care, in which we awarded this nursing home a C in that category. In crafting our short-term care ratings, we assess the facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. Our objective is to formulate a tool for sizing up the rehabilitation services of nursing homes. We were not able to find information about this nursing home's registered nurse or physical therapy staffing. The final metric we looked at in this area is the percentage of patients that returned home from the facility. We found that just 4.5 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.