Delaware Hospital for the Chronically Ill (DHCI)

In addition to a phenomenal overall grade, this facility also received A+ nursing grade. The nursing grade weighs a handful of subcategories, many of which are tied to nursing hours. This facility provided 0.9 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics and this facility excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any nursing home Delaware in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can many times be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as by employing a system of moving residents more often.

This nursing home also was elite in the area of long-term care, where we gave it a score of A. Only a select group of nursing homes performed better in this area. When facilities receive this kind of grade in this category it is a good sign for patient care and indicates that the nursing home is well-staffed with nurses and aids. After we finished assessing the amount of care provided by nurses, we then looked at the nursing home's vaccination data. This nursing home vaccinated 95.05814 percent of its residents for pneumonia, which is very impressive. Pneumonia is often a dangerous illness for nursing home patients so we strongly prefer when a facility does not roll the dice on this issue. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. It had only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

Compounding its fine profile, this facility also was given a superb short-term care grade, with a grade of A. Short-term care ratings are important for prospective residents in need of rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally mandates more highly-skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing means a wide scope of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other forms of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. However, according to the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last metric we considered in this area is the number of patients who ultimately were able to return home from the facility. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.

Lastly, this nursing home also received a nearly flawless government inspection report. As a result, it earned one of our highest grades in that category with an A. With this impressive grade, this place is one of the few facilities in Delaware to receive straight A's. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in calculating these inspection scores. One critical factor is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of these deficiencies is usually more important than the number of deficiencies, as some of these end up being relatively minor. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.