The Grove at Greenville

The primary reason this turned out to be a decent nursing home is that it earned an excellent inspection score. In fact, its inspection score was far superior to its overall grade. In our inspections category, we gave this facility a grade of A+. Inspection grades account for a host of factors included in a nursing home's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we weigh heavily is the number and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with better scores in this area generally have very few of these severe deficiencies. Surprisingly, this nursing home received a category L deficiency, which was unexpected given its inspection grade. This category of deficiency means the government inspectors uncovered a widespread deficiency putting resident safety or health in immediate danger. While other aspects of this nursing home's inspection report were favorable, we have some reservations.

Building on this facility's list of strengths, it also received an excellent nursing grade. We awarded them an impressive grade of B- in this area. Nursing scores are largely based on a nursing home's level of nurse staffing. This facility provided just 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a relatively low total compared to most other facilities. Finally, we also assessed some nursing quality measures. Although this facility got dinged a bit for its nursing hours, it excelled in a few of these quality measures. With fewer than five percent of its residents experiencing pressure ulcers, it did well in this subcategory. This can be a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as by having a protocol of moving residents more frequently.

This nursing home's second least favorable score was long-term care, where it earned a grade of just D in that category. This is a relatively poor score. If you are seeking services other than rehabilitation, you should take a close look at each facility's long-term care scores. After considering the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we then looked at the facility's vaccination record. This nursing home vaccinated 97.52066 percent of its patients for pneumonia, which is more than the majority of nursing homes. To our surprise, this place was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days. Unfortunately, a few of its other scores in this category were not as favorable as these.

Moving on to the next category, this nursing home didn't fare well. Due to an abysmal grade of F in short-term care, this was this facility's poorest category grade. In calculating our short-term care grades, we look at the nursing home's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. Our purpose is to formulate a measure for comparing the rehabilitation services of various nursing homes. Not surprisingly, we found that this nursing home provides far less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than the average facility. Finally, we looked at the percentage of residents that ultimately were able to return home from this facility. This nursing home didn't fare well here either. In fact, we found that just 3.8 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home. This figure was well off the national average.