The Springs at the Carlotta

In addition to being a first rate nursing home overall, this facility also excelled in our short-term care category, where it earned a grade of A. Few facilities performed better in this area. Our short-term care scores are based on a facility's quantity of skilled highly skilled professionals. This means a broad spectrum of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other variations of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the information this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final measure we considered in this area is the number of patients who were able to leave the facility and return home. We discovered that 7.2 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.

In addition, this nursing home also earned a nearly flawless inspection report. As a result, it earned one of our highest grades in that category with an A. Inspection scores weigh a host of factors included in a nursing home's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we rely on is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Places with higher scores in this area generally have very few of these severe deficiencies. Fortunately, although this nursing home had some minor dings on its government inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those found in categories G through L. This tells you that the inspectors didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This nursing home also was strong in the category of long-term care, where we awarded it a score of A. Very few facilities received a better grade in this area. Long-term care ratings in this range generally require both around the clock care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine healthcare services. Once we assessed the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we turned to the facility's vaccination data. This facility vaccinated 97.05882 percent of its residents against pneumonia, which is far higher than the majority of nursing homes. Finally, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

The next category we looked at was nursing, in which this facility received a grade of B-. While this ended up being its poorest category rating, this is still not a terrible score. There are numerous criteria within this category. Many of these factors are tied to the quantity and quality of nurse staffing. This nursing home provided just 0.5 hours of nursing care per patient daily. This is a low total compared with most other facilities. Finally, our nursing ratings also consider quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. Despite not having the highest total nursing hours, this facility performed admirably in the area of preventing major falls. This is often a good indicator that a nursing home has quality controls in place. Some falls can be avoided if a facility supplies enough nurses aids to assist its patients.