White Sulphur Springs Center

In addition to receiving a great overall grade, this facility also received an excellent long-term care score, with a grade of A. Long-term care grades in this range generally require both around the clock care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine medical care. After assessing the quantity of care provided by nurses and other staff, we turned to the facility's vaccination records. This facility vaccinated 98.68421 percent of its patients against pneumonia, which is significantly higher than most nursing homes. Finally, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

Adding to this nursing home's impressive resume, we awarded this facility a grade of A- for our inspections rating. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in computing our inspection grades. One critical factor is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of these deficiencies is usually more meaningful than the quantity of deficiencies, as some deficiencies are quite insignificant. Although this nursing home had a few deficiencies on its inspection report, none were severe based on CMS' deficiency scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

In addition, this facility also was given favorable short-term care grades in our assessment. Indeed, we awarded them one of our stronger grades in that area, with a grade of B+. In the area of short-term care, we try to qualify measures of a facility's rehabilitation services. We analyze the nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses and physical, occupational and other therapists. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. Not all nursing homes employs these skilled professionals. However, according to the data they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last statistic we looked at in this category is the percentage of residents who ultimately returned home from the nursing home. We found that 5.1 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.

Moving on to our final area, this nursing home also performed admirably in the nursing category. We gave it a B+ for this category. This rounded out a very strong profile. We analyzed the qualifications of nurses at the facility, as well as the number of hours the nurses worked with residents, in calculating our grade in this area. This nursing home provides 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures and this place excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any place the country in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as employing a system of moving residents more frequently.