Heartland of Peoria

Although we were not high on this facility's overall performance, it actually received an impressive inspection report this year with few dings from the applicable government inspectors. As a result, it received one of our better grades in that category with a grade of B+. Inspection ratings are tied to several datapoints located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Deficiencies are a key thing to look for on these inspections. You should especially avoid facilities that have severe deficiencies associated with endangerment of patients. This place received 5 deficiencies on its inspection report, but none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe. This means that the inspectors did not deem any of these deficiencies an immediate threat to patient health or safety. A few minor deficiencies aren't the end of the world.

One of the other reasons we graded this facility so highly is that it earned a very impressive nursing rating. This turned out to be its second best category grade. In that category, we awarded this nursing home an C. Our nursing score analyzes the nursing home's nurse staffing levels. We consider both the levels of licensure of those nurses as well as the amount of time spent with residents. This place provides only 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident each day. This is a somewhat uninspiring figure as it is well below the national average. Lastly, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics. While this nursing home got docked a bit for its nursing hours, it excelled in some of these quality-based metrics. With less than five percent of its patients suffering from pressure ulcers, it fared very well in this metric. This is generally an indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can many times be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as by having a system of turning residents even once per day.

The third highest category we gave this facility in any area came in the area of short-term care, where we awarded it a grade of C. Short-term care scores are crucial for residents needing rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally requires more highly-skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes a wide spectrum of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other variations of therapy. Unfortunately, this place was below average in terms of its quantity of registered nurse and physical therapy hours provided to its patients based on the measures we assessed. The important question is whether this also impacted quality of care. The last metric we considered in this area is the percentage of patients who ultimately were able to return home from the nursing home. We found that just 4.7 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home. Unfortunately, this was below average.

The next area we scored was long-term care, which is this nursing home's worst area. We awarded this nursing home a D in this category. For prospective patients in need of a permanent place to live as opposed to skilled nursing, long-term care grades are very important. On top of looking at the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home gave the vaccine to 97.80822 percent of its residents, which is more than the majority of nursing homes. Surprisingly, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. With only 0.03 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, this facility had less hospitalizations than the average nursing home. Sadly, a few of its other scores in the category were not as favorable as these.