Blackhawk Life Care Center

In addition to being a great overall grade, this facility also received A+ health inspections in recent years. Its inspections were virtually flawless. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in determining our inspection grades. One critical factor is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of the deficiencies is usually more meaningful than the quantity of deficiencies, as some deficiencies are quite minor. This facility was hit with 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe deficiencies. This tells you that the inspectors didn't deem any of the deficiencies to be an immediate threat to resident safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

We also awarded this nursing home a grade of A- for our short-term care score. In the category of short-term care, we strive to assess measures of a facility's rehabilitation. We assess the facility's skilled nursing services, such as the ones performed by registered nurses and physical, occupational and other therapists. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not all facilities employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, based on the data this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last measure we considered in this area is the percentage of residents who were able to leave the nursing home and return home. We discovered that 0 percent of this facility's patients returned home.

This facility is also above average in the area of long-term care, where it was given a score of B+. It performed better than most nursing homes in this category. When nursing homes receive this type of score in this category it is typically a good sign for patient care and indicates that the place is well-staffed with nurses and aids. After we finished looking at the amount of care provided by nurses, we then looked at the facility's vaccination statistics. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents against pneumonia, which is an impressive figure. Pneumonia sadly can be a life threatening health condition for nursing home patients so we strongly prefer when a nursing home doesn't take any chances. Lastly, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

The next area we analyzed is nursing. This nursing home received an above average nursing score this year, with a grade of C. Although this isn't nearly as strong as many of its other scores, this is nevertheless a respectable score in that category. We analyzed the qualifications of nurses working for the nursing home, in addition to the number of hours the nurses spent with residents, in computing our grade in this area. This place provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident daily. This is a lower figure than we were hoping for. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics. Although this place got docked a bit for nursing hours per resident, it excelled in a few of these quality metrics. With less than five percent of its patients experiencing pressure ulcers, it performed very well in this statistic. This is generally an indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as by having a protocol of turning residents even once per day.