Alden North Shore Rehab & Hcc

To go along with a favorable overall score, we gave this nursing home an A+ for our inspection category. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in computing our inspection scores. One of those factors is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of the deficiencies is arguably more important than the quantity of deficiencies, as some deficiencies are relatively minor. 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. Even some of the best nursing homes receive an occasional ding on their inspection report.

Among the reasons we graded this facility so well is that it was given a strong short-term care grade. In fact, short-term care turned out to be its second most favorable category score. In that area, we awarded this facility a score of A. In crafting our short-term care scores, we look at the facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. The purpose is to create a measure for comparing the rehabilitation services of nursing homes. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not all facilities employs these skilled professionals. However, according to the information they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last statistic we looked at in this category is the number of residents who ultimately were able to return home from the facility. We found that 6.9 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.

This facility is also strong in the area of nursing, where it received a grade of B. It outperformed most nursing homes in this category. There are a number of subcategories within this area. Most of these criteria are tied to levels of nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality-based metrics and this place excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any facility Illinois in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as by having a protocol of moving a resident more often.

The last category we analyzed is long-term care. This facility received a strong long-term care grade this year, with a C. Although this was not as good as a few of its other scores, this is still an acceptable grade for that category. Our long-term care ratings are essential for residents needing personal care. One of the criteria we considered in addition to nurse's aid hours was vaccines. Frankly, we were a bit concerned this nursing home provided the pneumonia vaccination to just 85.36585 percent of its residents. On a more positive note, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.