Hamilton Place at the Pines at Whiting

On top of receiving a strong overall score, this facility also received an A+ inspection rating. This score is based on its recent government inspections. An A+ in this area is one of the highest complements we can pay to a nursing home. Perhaps the most important factor we consider in determining our inspection ratings is deficiencies. These deficiencies can be found on a facility's recent inspection reports. Facilities with higher scores in this category typically dodged the more severe deficiencies involving health risks or even death. 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.

One of the other reasons we rated this facility so highly is that it earned a very impressive nursing rating. In that category, we awarded this facility an A. We assessed the levels of nurses working for the nursing home, in addition to the number of hours those nurses were with residents, in determining our grade in this area. This particular nursing home provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics and this place 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 the country in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as by employing a system of turning a patient even once per day.

Turning our next category, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A for its long-term care score. This is a first-rate score. If you are looking for services other than rehabilitation, you should take a close look at each nursing home's long-term care scores. Once we finished looking at the volume of nursing care, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination statistics. This facility vaccinated 81.935486 percent of its residents for pneumonia. Although its vaccination rate was a bit lower than we hoped for, we were pleased to find facility was able to limit hospitalizations. It had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

The next area we looked at proved to be this facility's poorest area. Nevertheless, even its weakest link would be a strength for most nursing homes. In fact, we gave it a favorable grade of B for our short-term care category. Our short-term care scores are arguably most critical for people needing rehabilitation services. Rehabilitation usually mandates more skilled nursing services. This includes not merely nursing, but also physical and respiratory therapy, as well as other types of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. Not all nursing homes employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the information this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final item we assessed in this category is the number of patients who were able to leave the nursing home and return home. We found that 4.4 percent of this facility's patients returned home.