Signature Healthcare of South Louisville

On top of receiving an elite overall grade, this facility earned an A+ inspection rating. This score is based on the facility's recent government inspections. An A+ in this area is one of the best complements we can pay to a nursing home. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in determining our inspection ratings. One key factor is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of deficiencies is arguably more important than the quantity of deficiencies, as some end up being quite minor. While this place had some minor dings on its report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those found in categories G through L. This means that the inspectors did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This facility also was awarded a first-rate long-term care score. Indeed, this ended up being this facility's second best category grade. In that area, we awarded this facility a score of A. For patients seeking a permanent place to live as opposed to skilled nursing, long-term care grades are very important. Once we assessed the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we turned to the facility's vaccination data. This facility vaccinated 90.08265 percent of its patients against pneumonia, which is somewhat less than we expected but still a respectable percentage. Lastly, we looked at its number of hospitalizations. Here we found that this facility had 3.42 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days. Although this admittedly wasn't as favorable as some of its other scores in this area, this figure may be skewed for some facilities based on the medical complexity of residents.

This facility is also strong in the area of short-term care, where it was given a grade of B+. It outpaced most facilities in this area. Our short-term care scores are based on a nursing home's quantity of skilled nursing services. This includes a wide spectrum of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, as well as other types of therapy. This facility provides more services with registered nurses and physical therapists than most facilities we looked at. Lastly, we looked at the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that it outperformed the majority of facilities in the country with 52.8 percent of its residents returning home. This is a higher rate than most nursing homes.

The next area we analyzed is nursing. We gave this nursing home one of our more favorable grades in this area, with a grade of B. Although this isn't as high as many of its other grades, it is still a fine grade. When computing our nursing ratings, we analyze both the number of hours nurses spend with residents and the training levels of the nurses. This nursing home provides 3.6 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, 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 metrics as reliable measures of the caliber of nursing care being provided, since better care tends to reduce these problems.