Sacred Heart Nursing Home

One of the many reasons this proved to be a great facility is that it earned a very impressive long-term care rating. In this area, we awarded this facility a grade of A. When facilities receive a grade in this range in this category it generally means it's well-staffed and is an overall good place to reside on a permanent basis. In addition to assessing the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home gave the vaccine to 98.63813 percent of its patients. Vaccines are critical to keeping patients healthy. Lastly, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

Among its many impressive grades, this facility received an excellent nursing grade. In fact, we gave it a grade of A in that category. We scrutinized the skill-level of nurses employed by the facility, as well as the quantity of time the nurses were with patients, in calculating our rating in this area. This nursing home averages 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures and this facility 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 state in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as having a policy of moving a patient more frequently.

In addition, this nursing home also received a nearly flawless government inspection report. It earned one of our best grades in that category with a score of A. Our inspection scores weigh several factors included in a nursing home's inspection reports. One key criteria we rely on is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with higher scores in this category generally have very few of these severe deficiencies. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Switching gears to the last category, this nursing home was given a decent short-term care rating. Although this was not nearly as elite as a few of its other category grades, this is truly not a major area of concern. In calculating these short-term care grades, we look at the facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. Our goal is to devise a barometer for sizing up the rehabilitation services of different nursing homes. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, based on the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last metric we considered in this category is the number of residents who were able to leave the nursing home and return to the community. We discovered that just 3.9 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home, which is below average.