Piedmont Health Care Center

In addition to faring well overall, this nursing home also earned a nearly flawless inspection report. Therefore, it received one of our highest scores in that category with an A+. These inspection scores weigh several factors, including deficiencies and federal fines. You can find more information about each of these items by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. 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. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

We also wanted to emphasize the fact that this facility excelled in our nursing rating. We awarded them an impressive grade of A+ in this category. Nursing scores are primarily based on the nursing home's level of nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics and this place excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any nursing home the nation in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as by employing a protocol of moving a patient more often.

Turning our next category, this nursing home was given an excellent long-term care grade. In fact, we awarded it a grade of A in that category. Long-term care grades in this range generally require both around the clock care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine healthcare services. Once we finished looking at the volume of nursing care, we then looked at the nursing home's vaccination record. This facility vaccinated 99.66102 percent of its patients for pneumonia, which is an impressive figure. Pneumonia can be a deadly illness for nursing home patients so we like it when a nursing home does not take any chances. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

In the final category we looked at, this nursing home was given a very strong grade of A in our short-term care category. With this score, the facility rounded out a straight A report card. In the category of short-term care, we try to evaluate measures of a facility's rehabilitation. We analyze the facility's skilled nursing services, including the ones performed by registered nurses and physical and occupational therapists. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. However, according to the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Lastly, we considered the percentage of residents who ultimately returned home from this nursing home. We found that 5.9 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home.