Alden Estates of Skokie

Located in Skokie, Illinois, Alden Estates of Skokie is one of five nursing homes in this area. Sporting an overall grade of A+, this facility is clearly a top-shelf facility. Indeed, we were so impressed with this nursing home that we rated it substantially ahead of the overwhelming majority of the facilities in Skokie. As you will find below, this facility performed equally well in our category grades. In fact, we gave it straight A's!

On top of faring well overall, this nursing home also earned a nearly flawless inspection report. Therefore, it earned one of our highest scores in that category with an A+. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in calculating our inspection grades. One of those factors is deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of these deficiencies is usually more meaningful than the quantity of deficiencies, as some are relatively minor. While this nursing home had some minor dings on its report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you that CMS didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This facility received dominant marks in the area of short-term care. For this reason, it was given one of our most impressive scores in that category with a score of A+. In the area of short-term care, we endeavor to evaluate indicators of a nursing home's rehabilitation services. We assess a nursing home's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses and physical therapists. This nursing home is markedly above average in terms of its quantity of both physical therapy and registered nurse hours provided to its patients. The facility supplied approximately 50% more care per patient from both of these care providers than the typical facility provided. The last item we assessed in this category is the percentage of residents who ultimately returned home from the nursing home. We found that it performed as well as just about any nursing home in Illinois in this area with 58.4 percent of its residents returning home. Unfortunately, at most nursing homes, fewer than half of their short-term residents are able to return home.

We also wanted to emphasize the fact that this facility received an impressive grade of A in our nursing category. The nursing rating is based on several subcategories, many of which are associated with levels of nurse staffing. This nursing home provided 4.2 hours of nursing care per resident daily, which is among the higher figures in the country. A significant percentage of those hours were provided by registered nurses, which are one of the most skilled levels of nurses. We are very impressed by both of these figures. On top of offering impressive levels of care, this facility also excelled in the quality measures we assessed. By way of illustration, it performed as well as any nursing home in Illinois in terms of avoiding pressure ulcers and major falls. We view these metrics as predictive indicators of the quality of nursing care offered.

Moving on to our last area, this facility also excelled in our long-term care category. In fact, we gave it an A for this category. This topped off a straight A report card. When nursing homes receive a grade in this range in long-term care it generally means it has plenty of staff and is a quality place to reside on a permanent basis. One of the statistics we considered in addition to this facility's quality nursing hours is vaccinations. This nursing home provided the pneumonia vaccine to 100 percent of its patients. Vaccines are a great way to avoid unnecessary deaths and hospitalizations for the elderly. Finally, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.