Sellersburg Healthcare Center

Although this place's overall grade was as bad as it gets, it actually didn't perform terribly in our short-term care category. We awarded it a B- for that category, which isn't bad. That said, this was not enough to save its otherwise poor profile. In computing these short-term care scores, we look at the facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, speech therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. The purpose is to create a scale for sizing up the rehabilitation services of different nursing homes. We were surprised to find that this place was below average in the two key staffing areas we assessed. The facility supplied fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most other nursing homes. It is important to determine whether this is adversely impacting the quality of care. Finally, we considered the percentage of residents who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 6 percent of this facility's residents returned home. At most facilities, closer to half of their patients are able to return home so this figure is below average.

Unfortunately, this facility didn't receive glowing inspections in recent years. We gave it a D for our inspections rating and that actually was its second highest score. Inspection scores account for several factors found on a nursing home's inspection reports. You should be especially cautious when considering a nursing home that has severe deficiencies on its inspection reports. This particular facility was assessed 7 deficiencies by CMS. The only favorable thing we can say is that none of its deficiencies were in the categories that indicate they caused a risk to patient health or safety. Finally, we also would like to draw your attention to the fact that this nursing home was assessed large government fines of over $100,000. This usually signifies that a facility'sbad track record has been an issue for several years.

Unfortunately, we gave this facility an F for its nursing grade. Our nursing score is primarily associated with a nursing home's level of nurse staffing. This facility provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low total compared to most nursing homes. Lastly, we also looked at some nursing quality measures in calculating our nursing grades. This nursing home fared well when it comes to minimizing its residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. Many consider these statistics to be reliable indicators of the quality of nursing care.

The next category we looked at is long-term care. Sadly, it received a lowly F for this category, which is an abysmal grade. In a long-term care setting, 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 patients. On top of assessing the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. Thankfully, this nursing home gave the vaccine to 95.364235 percent of its residents, which is an above average total. Surprisingly, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. With just 0.02 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, this nursing home has fewer hospitalizations than the average nursing home. Unfortunately, a few of its other scores in the category weren't as favorable as these.