Thibodaux Healthcare Center

In addition to faring well overall, this facility also earned a nearly flawless inspection report. Consequently, it earned one of our best grades in that category with a grade of A+. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in computing these inspection scores. One key factor is deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of the deficiencies is arguably more meaningful than the quantity of deficiencies, as some deficiencies end up being quite insignificant. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This facility performed well in the category of long-term care. As a result, we awarded it a score of A- for that area, which happens to be one of our better grades. Nursing homes that receive this type of grade in long-term care tend to provide consistent around the clock care to ensure residents are well cared for. Once we assessed the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination record. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its patients for pneumonia, which is much higher than the vast majority of nursing homes. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

This facility's next best category grade came in the area of nursing. In that category, we gave this nursing home a grade of C. This wasn't quite on par with some of its other category grades mentioned above. Nursing grades are primarily tied to the facility's level of nurse staffing. This place averages just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day, which is well below average. Lastly, despite not having the highest total nursing hours, this nursing home actually performed admirably in the area of preventing major falls. This is usually a reliable indicator that a facility has quality controls in place.

Switching gears to our last area, this nursing home was given a decent short-term care grade. While this wasn't quite as impressive as many of its other category grades, this is really not a terrible score. In calculating our short-term care ratings, we size up a nursing home's levels of skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists speech therapists and other licensed professionals. This score is frequently a solid assessment of a nursing home's ability to rehabilitate patients. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not all facilities employs these skilled professionals. However, based on the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Lastly, we assessed the number of patients who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 3.6 percent of this facility's patients returned home. At most nursing homes, closer to half of their residents are able to return home so this figure is below average.