The Lodge at Wellmore- Tega Cay

One of the reasons this ended up being a great nursing home is it received an A+ in our inspections category. This is simply as good as it gets in this critical area. Our inspection scores account for a host of factors included in a facility's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we consider is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Nursing homes with better scores in this area usually have few of these severe deficiencies. This facility received 2 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe. This tells you that the inspectors didn't consider any of the deficiencies to be an imminent risk to resident health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

An additional reason we assessed this facility so favorably is that it was given an A+ short-term care score. This is just about as strong as it gets in this category. Our short-term care scores are likely most important for folks in need of rehabilitation services. Rehabilitation generally mandates additional skilled nursing. This includes not only nursing services, but also physical and occupational therapy, as well as other types of therapy. This nursing home excelled in two key staffing areas we looked at. In fact, it supplied about 50% more care from registered nurses and physical therapists than the typical nursing home. This is certainly a great sign. Finally, we looked at the number of patients that returned home from this facility. On top of excelling in the area of physical therapy staffing, we found that it performed as well as just about any nursing home in the nation with 69.5 percent of its patients returning home.

Among its many impressive grades, this facility received an excellent nursing grade. In fact, we gave it a grade of A in that category. Our nursing rating features a number of factors. The most important factor is the number of hours nurses spend with patients. This particular facility provided 4.3 hours of nursing care per resident each day. This was one of the highest totals we found. In addition, a significant portion of this care was provided by registered nurses, which are highly skilled nurses. These are both really impressive figures. On top of offering impressive levels of care, this place also performed well in several of the quality-based metrics we looked at. For example, in terms of the percentage of its patients suffering falls leading to serious injury, this nursing home performed as well as any nursing home the nation. Avoiding serious falls is typically a good indicator that a facility has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can generally be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are employed.

In the last category we rated, this facility received a very strong grade of A- in our long-term care category. With this score, the nursing home completed a straight A profile. When facilities receive a score in this range in long-term care it typically means it's well-staffed and is a quality place to reside on a permanent basis. In addition to very favorable nursing hour statistics, this facility's vaccination record was top notch as well. In fact, this facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents against pneumonia. This combination proved to be effective as this nursing home also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had just 1.49 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days.