Chicago Ridge Nursing Center

We weren't high on this nursing home's overall grade or its category grades. We gave it just a D for our short-term care rating and that turned out to be its best score. Our short-term care scores are based in part on the nursing home's quantity of skilled skilled healthcare professionals. This means a broad spectrum of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other forms of therapy. Considering its grade in this category, we weren't surprised to discover that this nursing home was well below average in terms of its quantity of registered nurse and physical therapy hours provided to its patients based on the measures we assessed. Lastly, we considered the percentage of residents who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. This definitely was not a strength for this nursing home. We found that just 0 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home. At most facilities, about half of their patients are able to return home so this is well below average.

Tragically, we gave this facility an F for its long-term care score. Facilities that receive this type of grade in this category may not provide the type of consistent 24/7 care that some other nursing homes offer. After considering the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we turned to the facility's vaccination records. We were a bit alarmed this facility vaccinated 26.955309 percent of its patients against pneumonia, which happens to be quite a few points below the national average. To our surprise, this place was actually able to limit hospitalizations. With just 0.04 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, this facility has fewer hospitalizations than the majority of nursing homes. This is its best score in this category.

We also wanted to draw your attention to this nursing home's inspection grades where it received an F. This generally means we found some red flags on the inspection reports. When a place has this bad of an inspection grade, you should expect some severe deficiencies on its inspection report. Severe deficiencies indicate a risk to the well being of residents. This nursing home was hit with 7 deficiencies on its inspection report. The only positive thing we found is that none of its deficiencies were in the categories that indicate that they posed a threat to resident safety or health. Lastly, this facility was flagged by CMS for possible abuse or neglect. We prefer to avoid facilities with this designation. Please do your best to find an alternative nursing home.

The last area we looked at was nursing. This facility received a rock bottom grade of F in this area. Nursing grades are based largely on quantity of nursing care available. This nursing home provides 0.2 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a much lower figure than we are used to seeing. On top of receiving below average scores for nursing hours, this place was a bit less impressive in some of the quality-based metrics we looked at in determining our nursing scores. We looked at the percent of patients suffering pressure ulcers and found this facility was at approximately 1.5 times the national average in this metric.