Riverside Lifelong Health & Rehabilitation Saluda

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 scores weigh a host of factors included in a nursing home's inspection report. One key criteria we look at is the number and severity of deficiencies. Nursing homes with better grades in this area generally have few severe deficiencies. While this place had a few deficiencies on its report, none were severe based on CMS' scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Another one of this facility's quality category scores came in the area of long-term care. We gave them one of our stronger grades in that category, with a score of B. When nursing homes receive a score in this range in this category it typically means it's well-staffed and is a quality place to reside on a permanent basis. On top of assessing the quantity of care provided by nurses and other staff, we analyzed the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home provided the vaccine to 95.07389 percent of its residents, which is more than the vast majority of nursing homes. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping 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.

Another strong feature for this facility is that it received an impressive nursing grade. In that area, we awarded this facility a grade of B. Our nursing rating is based on the facility's nurse staffing levels. We consider both the levels of licensure of those nurses as well as the number of hours spent with residents. This facility provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed 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 facility the state in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as by having a protocol of moving a patient more frequently.

The final category we analyzed was short-term care. We gave it a grade of B- in that area. This is a perfectly acceptable grade in this category. With our short-term care assessment, we strive to forge a sound barometer for rehabilitation services. In doing so, we look at a nursing home's scope of highly-skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as respiratory therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not all facilities employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, according to the information this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last measure we looked at in this area is the number of patients that were able to return home from the facility. We found that just 0 percent of this facility's residents returned home. Unfortunately, this was below the national average.