Bayou Chateau Nursing Center

On top of being an elite nursing home overall, this facility performed well in the area of inspections, where it received an A+. Few places fared as well in this category. Inspection grades weigh several factors, including deficiencies, substantiated complaints and federal fines. You can find more information about each of these issues by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. Amazingly, this was one of the few nursing homes in the country that had no deficiencies whatsoever on its inspection report. This is very impressive. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This facility also received an A+ for its long-term care grade. When facilities receive a score in this range in long-term care it typically means it has plenty of staff and is a quality place to live on a permanent basis. Once we assessed the quantity of nursing care, we then looked at the facility's vaccination record. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its patients against pneumonia, which is an impressive figure. Pneumonia sadly is often a life threatening health condition for nursing home patients so we prefer when a facility does not take any chances. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. It had only 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

This facility received a very good nursing grade this year as well. It received one of our better scores in that category with a grade of B. Our nursing score features a host of subcategories. The most important factor is the number of hours nurses spent with patients. This nursing home averages 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This facility performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a facility has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can frequently be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

The last category we assessed was short-term care. In this area, we awarded this nursing home a decent grade of B-. This turned out to be this nursing home's weakest area. Short-term care grades are generally used to measure a facility's rehabilitation services. In order to offer highly scored rehabilitation services, nursing homes generally need to offer higher levels of highly skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing includes registered nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists and other licensed professionals. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these skilled professionals. However, according to the information they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Lastly, we looked at the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this facility's residents returned home. At most facilities, closer to half of their residents are able to return home so this figure is below average.