St. Luke's Hospital - Sacred Heart Campus

On top of performing well overall, this facility received a nearly flawless inspection report. Consequently, it earned one of our highest grades in that area with a grade of A+. Inspection grades are based on items located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places that excel in this category have very few deficiencies on those reports. Most importantly, these nursing homes should not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with endangerment of patients. Although this place had a few deficiencies on its government inspection report, none were major deficiencies based on CMS' deficiency scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

An additional reason we assessed this facility so highly is that it received an A+ short-term care score. This is flat out as good as it gets in this area. In determining our short-term care scores, we analyze the nursing home's levels of highly skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists occupational therapists and other highly trained professionals. This grade is frequently a useful assessment of a facility's ability to rehabilitate patients. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, according to the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final statistic we considered in this area is the number of residents who who were able to eventually return home from the facility. We found that 7 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.

Compounding its strong resume, this nursing home also was given a strong long-term care grade, with a grade of A. In a long-term care environment, the primary goal is to keep patients healthy and safe. This is different than skilled nursing or short-term care where the goal is to rehabilitate residents. In addition to assessing the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. Unfortunately, we were not able to track down information about this nursing home's vaccination rates. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

In our last area, we gave this nursing home an A+ for its nursing rating. This completed a very impressive profile. The nursing rating assesses quite a few factors, however, the primary consideration is the level of nurse hours per patient per week. This nursing home averages 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed certain nursing quality measures in computing our nursing grades. These include minimizing residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. We look at these statistics as reliable indicators of the caliber of nursing care provided, since better care tends to reduce these problems.