Citadel Of Skokie

While we graded this facility incredibly poorly overall, it received a fairly respectable inspection report this year. As a result, it received a decent grade in that category with a score of B-. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in determining our inspection scores. One key factor is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of these deficiencies is usually more meaningful than the quantity of deficiencies, as some deficiencies are quite minor. This facility was hit with 8 deficiencies on its inspection report, but none were considered to be severe. This indicates that the government inspectors didn't consider any of these deficiencies to pose an imminent threat to resident health or safety. Finally, this facility was cited by CMS for possible abuse or neglect. We would not recommend this facility under any circumstance.

We were also pleasantly surprised to discover that this nursing home earned a decent short-term care score this year. We gave it a C in this category. Short-term care grades are based in part on a nursing home's quantity of highly-skilled nursing services. This includes a vast range of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, not to mention other variations of therapy. In this place's case, we were surprised to learn that it actually provides less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than a typical facility. The hope is that this does not adversely impact the quality of care. The last item we assessed in this area is the number of patients that ultimately were able to return home from the facility. We found that just 5 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home. This figure was below the national average.

We gave this facility a grade of just D for our nursing rating. The nursing category analyzes quite a few datapoints, most of which are tied to quantities of nurse staffing. This facility offered a meager 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident each day. Lastly, we also assessed some nursing quality measures in determining our nursing ratings. This place performed well when it comes to avoiding pressure ulcers and major falls.

Turning to the last category, this nursing home didn't perform well in this category either. With a poor grade of F in long-term care, this is about as terrible as it gets. Long-term care ratings of this caliber generally are a bad sign for the quantity and quality of care provided by nurses and aids, as well as the levels of routine medical care available. One of the data points we considered after nurse's aid hours was vaccinations. We were a bit concerned this nursing home administered the pneumonia vaccination to just 77.21893 percent of its residents. Surprisingly, this facility was actually able to limit hospitalizations. With just 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, this nursing home has less hospitalizations than the majority of nursing homes. This was its best score in this category.