Sylvan Health Center

Although we were not high on this facility overall, we awarded it a B- for our nursing rating. This grade is better than its overall score. Our nursing rating is primarily based on a facility's nurse staffing. This facility provides only 0.4 hours of nursing care per patient per day. This is a somewhat alarming figure which is well below the national average. Despite having low quantities of nursing care, this place fared better in some of the quality-based metrics we looked at. It scored well in terms of minimizing its residents' major falls and pressure ulcers. We consider these areas to be good measures of the quality of nursing care. In many cases, the quality of nursing care is just as important as the number of hours of care provided.

One of this facility's more favorable category scores was in the area of short-term care. This wound up being its second most favorable category. In that area, we gave this facility a grade of B-. In the category of short-term care, we strive to assess measures of a facility's rehabilitation services. We assess a facility's skilled nursing services, such as the ones performed by registered nurses and physical and occupational therapists. Unfortunately, this place was below average in terms of its quantity of physical therapy and registered nurse hours provided to its patients based on the measures we assessed. The question is whether this adversely impacted quality of care. The last metric we looked at in this area is the percentage of residents who ultimately were able to return home from the nursing home. We found that just 5.8 percent of this facility's patients returned home. Unfortunately, this was below average.

This facilities next most favorable area was long-term care. We gave it a B- in this area. This is basically a middle of the road grade in this area. Long-term care grades focus on a facility's assistance with daily living instead of the highly skilled nursing or medical services that are critical to a skilled nursing facility. After we finished assessing the amount of nursing care, we then analyzed the nursing home's vaccination data. We were optimistic to discover that this facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents for pneumonia. This nursing home was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

The last category we looked at is inspections. This score is based on the nursing home's recent government inspections. We awarded it a C in this category. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in computing these inspection ratings. One of those factors is health deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of deficiencies is usually more meaningful than the number of deficiencies, as some deficiencies can be quite insignificant. This facility was assessed 3 deficiencies on its inspection report, but fortunately none were in categories G through L. This means inspectors did not deem any of the deficiencies to present an imminent risk to patient safety or health. Finally, CMS flagged this nursing home for possible abuse or neglect. This is not what you want to see. We advise you to direct your search elsewhere.