St Luke's Living Center

To pair with its strong overall score, we gave this place an A- for the area of inspections. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in determining these inspection grades. One key factor is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of deficiencies is arguably more meaningful than the quantity of deficiencies, as some deficiencies can be relatively insignificant. While this facility had a few minor dings on its government inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you the inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Keep in mind that deficiency-free inspections are rare in this industry.

This facility received a very good nursing grade this year as well. It received one of our better scores in that category with a grade of B+. Nursing grades are primarily based on the nursing home's nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 0 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 facility Louisiana 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 employing a protocol of turning a patient even once per day.

Turning to the third area, this facility also received a score of B+ for its long-term care rating. This is a well above average score in this area. Long-term care grades in this range generally require both around the clock care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine healthcare services. Once we assessed the quantity of care provided by nurses and other staff, we turned to the nursing home's vaccination records. It doesn't appear that this nursing home provided information about vaccinations. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

The last area we graded was short-term care. This facility was given a C for the category. In our short-term care assessment, we strive to create a fair barometer for rehabilitation. In doing so, we look at the nursing home's levels of highly-skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as respiratory therapy. Unfortunately, we weren't able to track down registered nurse or physical therapy staffing data for this place. Lastly, we considered the percentage of residents who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 3.9 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.