Southern Tennessee Regional Health System - Winchester Skilled Nursing

In addition to being a great overall grade, this facility also received A+ health inspections in recent years. Its inspections were virtually flawless. Inspection grades account for 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 area generally have few of these severe deficiencies. This facility was hit with 3 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered severe. This tells you that CMS didn't deem any of the deficiencies an immediate threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This high end facility also was superb in the area of short-term care, where we gave it a score of A+. Few nursing homes performed better in this area. With our short-term care grade, we attempt to craft a fair gauge for rehabilitation. In doing so, we analyze the facility's level of 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 nursing homes employs these skilled professionals. However, based on the information this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last metric we considered in this category is the number of residents who eventually returned home from the nursing home. We found that 7 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.

We also wanted to emphasize the fact that this facility received an impressive grade of A in our nursing category. Our nursing score analyzes several datapoints, most of which are tied to nursing hours. This facility provided 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics and this facility 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 typically be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as having a policy of moving a patient even once per day.

Switching gears to our next area, this facility also excelled in our long-term care category. In fact, we awarded it an A for that category. This topped off truly elite profile. If you are looking for anything other than rehabilitation, you should take a close look at long-term care scores. One of the statistics we considered on top of nursing hours is vaccinations. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like this nursing home submitted information on its vaccination levels. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.