Sherrill House

In addition to being a top notch nursing home overall, this place also performed well in inspections, where it earned an A. Few facilities performed better in this category. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in determining our inspection scores. One of those factors is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of these deficiencies is arguably more meaningful than the number of deficiencies, as some deficiencies end up being quite insignificant. 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.

We also want to draw your attention to the fact that this facility was given an elite score of A in our short-term care area. In computing our short-term care ratings, we analyze the nursing home's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, speech therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. Our purpose is to formulate a measure for comparing the rehabilitation services of different facilities. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. However, according to the data this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Finally, we looked at the number of residents who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 5.6 percent of this facility's patients returned home.

We also want to emphasize the fact that this nursing home was given an impressive score of A in our long-term care area. Nursing homes that excel in long-term care typically are well-staffed and offer extensive hands on care to residents. On top of looking at the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility gave the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients. Vaccines are critical to keeping patients healthy. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

Turning to the next area, this facility received an extremely favorable nursing grade. In fact, we awarded it a grade of A- in that area, giving this facility straight A's. When computing our nursing ratings, we analyze both nursing hours and the levels of licensure of those nurses. This nursing home provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This facility performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a place has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can many times be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.