The Retreat at Brightwater
171 Brightwater Drive, Myrtle Beach SC 29579 · (843) 903-8300 · 66.11% estimated occupancy 1Updated: Aug 1, 2020 · By Nick Reese
With an address in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, The Retreat at Brightwater is one of just a few available nursing homes in this area. We awarded this nursing home an overall grade of C. A grade of this caliber requires some decent marks. Based on the data we reviewed, there are certainly far worse places out there. The best part of this nursing home's report card was its stellar short-term care score. short-term care grades are discussed in the next paragraph.
Additional Details:
Accepts Medicare 1 :
Accepts Medicaid 1 :
CCRC :
For profit - Corporation
Resident Council:
Family Council:
Medical Staff Hours Per Patient (2019)
Short-term Care Quality
We gave this facility an A+ for our short-term care rating. This score is far more impressive than the nursing home's overall grade. Short-term care grades are typically employed to grade a nursing home's rehabilitation services. In order to offer highly scored rehabilitation services, facilities generally need to feature better levels of highly skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing includes registered nurses, physical therapists, speech therapists and other licensed professionals. Remarkably, this place provides roughly 1.5 times as many hours of services from registered nurses and physical therapists than most facilities we assessed. This is typically a very favorable sign. Finally, we looked at the percentage of patients who ultimately returned home from this nursing home. In addition to excelling in the area of physical therapy staffing, we found that it fared as well as just about any facility in this area with 67.2 percent of its patients returning home.
Long-term Care Quality
This facility also excelled in the area of long-term care, where it received a grade of A+. Few nursing homes performed better in this category. Nursing homes that do well in this category typically provide residents with closer supervision and stay on top of routine healthcare services. Once we assessed the quantity of care provided by nurses and other staff, we then analyzed the nursing home's vaccination statistics. This nursing home vaccinated 94.44444 percent of its patients for pneumonia. Vaccines are vital to keeping residents healthy. The last statistic we assessed was the nursing home's hospitalization rate. We found that this nursing home had 3.55 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days. Although this admittedly wasn't as strong as most of its other scores in this category, this figure may be skewed for some facilities based on the medical complexity of patients.
Nurse Quality
Turning to another strength for this facility, it also received an elite nursing grade. In fact, we gave this facility a grade of A+. In computing a facility's nursing grade, we weigh the number of hours nurses commit to patients and the level of licensure of the nurses. This facility provided 6.2 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Roughly one quarter of this care was provided by registered nurses, which are highly skilled nurses. Both of these statistics easily exceed the national average. Lastly, this place also performed well in many of the quality-based metrics we assessed. In terms of the number of its patients suffering falls leading to major injury, this place outpaced the national average.
Facility Inspections
Turning our last category of inspections, this nursing home received a grade that's as bad as it gets. With an F in the inspection category, this nursing home's overall grade was adversely affected. For facilities that received this bad of an inspection score, we recommend scrutinizing any severe deficiencies on its inspection report. This particular facility was assessed 4 deficiencies by CMS. The only positive thing we found is that none of these deficiencies were in the categories that indicate they created a threat to patient safety or health. Finally, this place received significant government fines in recent years.
Overall Rating Over Time
Compared to national and state averages across all facilities.
The Retreat at Brightwater Quality Metrics
Minimizes Pressure Ulcers
This indicates the percent of patients who have had a pressure ulcer. Pressure ulcers, which are also called bed sores, are often caused by patients not being moved frequently enough. Better nursing care can limit the number of pressure ulcers sustained by residents in a nursing home.
Percent of Patients with Pressure Ulcers
Lower is Better
Minimizes Serious Falls
This indicates the percentage of residents that suffered from a fall which caused serious injury.
Percent of Patients with Serious Falls
Lower is Better
Minimizes Urinary Tract Infections
This datapoint measures the percentage of long-term residents who suffered from a urinary tract infection. Although a higher rate of these infections could reflect poorly on a nursing home's nursing care, it can be problematic to compare different facilities due to nursing homes having reporting standards.
Percent of Patients with UTIs
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Psychotic Medication
This indicates the percent of patients given antipsychotic drugs. Antipsychotic medications are prescribed to patients for many conditions, including dementia. Tragically, in limited cases, high levels of antipsychotic drug use may suggest a nursing home is using these medications to control patient behavior.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Anxiety Medication
This tells you the percent of residents prescribed antianxiety medications. Antianxiety medications are given to patients experiencing anxiety or depression.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Managing Depression Among Residents
This metric is a measure of the percent of long-term care residents who are exhibiting symptoms of depression.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriate Vaccine Usage
This indicates the percentage of residents that received the pneumonia and flu vaccines. High vaccination rates should be the norm at this point.
Percent of Patients
Higher is Better
Residents Maintain Autonomy
This is the percent of residents that required increased assistance with activities of daily living over time.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Ability to Keep Residents Mobile
This datapoint measures the percent of long-term stay patients who maintained mobility.
Percentage of Residents
Higher is Better
Hospitalizations
This indicates the number of hospitalizations per 1,000 days of patient care.
Hospitalizations per 1,000 resident days
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: Rehospitalizations
This datapoint measures the number of times residents are rehospitalized per thousand days of short-term resident care.
Percentage of Residents Rehospitalized
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: ER Visits
This indicates the number of emergency room visits per 1,000 days of short-term patient care. There is typically a correlation between staying out of the emergency room and the overall quality of short-term care.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: Facilitates Functional Improvement
This indicates the percent of short-term stay residents that saw functional improvements, such as with activities of daily living. Higher levels of independence with ADL's often correlates with better rehabilitation.
Percentage of Resident
Higher is Better