Vermilion Health Care Center

While we were fairly low on this nursing home overall, we awarded it an A+ for our inspections rating. This score is far more impressive than the nursing home's overall score. Inspection ratings account for a host of factors found on a nursing home's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we look at is the number and severity of deficiencies. You generally want to avoid nursing homes with too many deficiencies flagged. This place was hit with 3 deficiencies on its inspection report, but none were considered severe. This tells you that the inspectors did not deem any of the deficiencies to create an immediate risk to patient safety or health. A few minor deficiencies are not necessarily the end of the world.

Another one of this facility's more impressive category grades came in the area of long-term care. In that category, we awarded this facility a B. It actually outpaced most nursing homes in this area. Facilities that do well in long-term care tend to provide patients with better supervision and stay on top of routine medical care. In addition to considering the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we analyzed the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home provided the vaccine to 99.004974 percent of its residents. Vaccines are vital to keeping patients out of the hospital. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

We also wanted to draw your attention to this facility's poor nursing grade where it received an F. When computing a nursing home's nursing rating, we weigh the quantity of hours nurses spend with patients and the levels of training of the nurses. This facility provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low total compared to most nursing homes. Lastly, we also assessed some nursing quality measures in determining our nursing grades. This facility fared well in the area of avoiding major falls and pressure ulcers.

The next category we rated is short-term care, where this facility received an abysmal score in this category also. Unfortunately, we gave it a lowly F in this area, which is obviously a major disappointment. Short-term care ratings are vital for residents in need of rehabilitation. Rehabilitation usually utilizes more skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing means a vast scope of services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other forms of therapy. With its grade in this area, we were not stunned to find that this nursing home was well below average in terms of the number of physical therapy and registered nurse hours provided to its residents based on the metrics we assessed. The final measure we considered in this area is the percentage of residents who ultimately were able to return home from the nursing home. This facility struggled quite a bit in this metric as well, with just 3.9 percent of its residents returning home.