Alden Terrace of Mchenry Rehab

While this facility's overall score was not a highlight, it actually received a very good grade in the category of inspections. We gave it a B+ for that area, which is one of our better scores. These inspection ratings weigh several factors, including deficiencies, substantiated complaints and federal fines. You can learn more about each of these items by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. While this facility had some deficiencies on its government inspection report, none of them were severe based on CMS' scale. A couple minor deficiencies are not necessarily the end of the world.

One of the other reasons we rated this nursing home so highly is that it received a very impressive nursing rating. Nursing turned out to be its second best category grade. In that category, we awarded this facility an B-. Our nursing grade is based on the nursing home's level of nurse staffing. We factor in both the levels of skill of the nurses as well as the amount of time spent with residents. This particular facility provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident on a daily basis. This figure is significantly below average. Finally, nursing scores also consider quality-based assessments, such as preventing major falls. Despite not having the highest total nursing hours per resident, this place actually performed admirably in the area of preventing major falls. This is typically an indicator that a place has sufficient quality controls in place. Many falls can be avoided if a nursing home provides enough nurses to assist its patients.

Sadly, this facility's third highest category was short-term care. However, with a grade of D in this area, it still fared relatively badly. In determining our short-term care ratings, we look at a facility's levels of skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists respiratory therapists and other highly trained professionals. This category is typically a meaningful measure of a facility's ability to rehabilitate patients. Not surprisingly, we found that this nursing home provides far less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than the average facility. Lastly, we considered the number of patients that who were able to eventually return home from this facility. This nursing home didn't fare well here either. In fact, we found that just 3.7 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home. This figure was quite a bit off the national average.

The last area we assessed is long-term care, which turned out to be this nursing home's worst category. We awarded this nursing home a grade of D in that area. If you are looking for services other than rehabilitation, you should take a close look at each nursing home's long-term care grades. After we finished looking at the amount of nursing care, we turned to the facility's vaccination records. We were optimistic to learn that this nursing home vaccinated 94.52631 percent of its patients for pneumonia. Surprisingly, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. With only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, this facility has less hospitalizations than most nursing homes. Sadly, some of its other scores in this category weren't as favorable as these.