Avantara Long Grove

On top of performing well in its overall grade, this facility performed at an even higher level in the area of inspections. In fact, it received a nearly flawless inspection report this year. As a result, it received one of our highest grades in that category with a score of A. Perhaps the most significant factor we consider in calculating our inspection ratings is deficiencies. Deficiencies can be found on a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Facilities with better grades in this area most likely avoided the more severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. This particular nursing home received 10 deficiencies on its inspection report. Overall, this is still a good inspection report, but we'd always recommend looking into any deficiencies you find troubling.

We also gave this nursing home a grade of A- for our long-term care grade. Facilities that receive this kind of grade in long-term care typically provide consistent around the clock care to make sure residents are well cared for. In addition to looking at the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility administered the vaccine to 99.83305 percent of its patients. Vaccines are critical to keeping patients healthy. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0.03 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

This facility is also above average in the area of short-term care, where it was awarded a score of B+. It performed more favorably than most nursing homes in this area. In determining these short-term care scores, we look at the facility's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. The goal is to devise a measure for sizing up the rehabilitation services of various nursing homes. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not every nursing home 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 looked at the number of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 5.7 percent of this facility's residents returned home.

The last area we assessed is nursing. We gave this facility an acceptable grade in that category, with a grade of B-. While this isn't as dominant as a few of this nursing home's other grades, it is still not a terrible score. We scrutinized the skill-level of nurses employed by the facility, as well as the number of hours the nurses worked with patients, in calculating our grade in this area. This nursing home provides 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident on a daily basis. This is a lower figure than we were hoping for. Despite having low quantities of nursing care, this nursing home surprisingly excelled in some of the quality measures we looked at. In fact, it performed well when it comes to avoiding major falls and pressure ulcers. Many consider these areas to be good measures of the quality of nursing care. In some cases, the quality of nursing care is every bit as important as the quantity of hours of care provided.