Sheridan County Health Complex Long Term Care

One of the many reasons this turned out to be a quality nursing home is that it earned a very impressive grade in inspections. Inspections turned out to be its best category. In this category, we awarded this facility an A. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in determining these inspection ratings. One critical factor is deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of deficiencies is arguably more important than the quantity of deficiencies, as some end up being relatively insignificant. While this place had a few minor dings on its inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means that CMS did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. The fact that the deficiencies were relatively minor leaves us less concerned with this inspection report.

This facility also excelled in the area of nursing, where it received a grade of A. Few nursing homes performed better in this area. Our nursing grade is mostly based on a nursing home's nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures and this nursing home excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any nursing home Kansas in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as by having a protocol of moving a resident at least once a day.

The next area we assessed is short-term care. Contributing to its elite profile, this nursing home also performed well in this category. In fact, we awarded it a grade of of A- for the category. Short-term care grades are critical for prospective residents looking for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation usually utilizes more highly-skilled nursing. This means a wide scope of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other types of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not all nursing homes employs these skilled professionals. However, based on the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Finally, we considered the number of residents who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.

The fourth category we looked at was long-term care, where this nursing home was given a grade of B+. This wrapped up a very strong profile. Not many nursing homes received a B+ or better in every single category. Nursing homes that do well in long-term care tend to provide patients with better supervision and stay on top of routine medical care. After considering the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination data. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its patients against pneumonia. Vaccines are critical to keeping patients healthy. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.