Hickory Creek at New Castle

In addition to receiving a strong overall grade, this facility also earned first-rate inspections in recent years. We awarded it one of our better scores in that area, with an A. Our inspection grades are tied to many items located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places that receive favorable grades in this category tend to have few deficiencies on those reports. Most importantly, these nursing homes should not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with endangerment of patients. While this facility had some minor dings on its report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you that the inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Among this nursing home's other strengths is its top-shelf long-term care grade. We awarded them one of our strongest scores in that area, with a grade of A-. Nursing homes that receive this kind of grade in this category typically provide consistent 24/7 care to make sure patients are well cared for. One of the criteria we considered in addition to nurse's aid hours is vaccines. This facility provided the pneumonia vaccine to 96.11651 percent of its residents. Vaccination is a great way to minimize negative health outcomes for the elderly population. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0.03 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

The next area we graded was short-term care, where this facility was given a B- in this area. Our short-term care ratings are probably most critical for patients needing rehabilitation from their nursing home. Rehabilitation generally utilizes additional skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing means not just nursing services, but also physical and respiratory therapy, as well as other forms of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the information this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Finally, we considered the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this facility's residents returned home. At most nursing homes, closer to half of their residents are able to return home so this figure is below average.

The next area we rated was nursing, which was this nursing home's worst category. We awarded this facility a grade of D in that area. Unfortunately, this score pulled down the facility's overall profile to a certain degree. Our nursing grade assesses the facility's nurse staffing levels. We consider both the levels of training of the nurses and the quantity of hours spent with patients. This facility provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low total compared to most nursing homes. Unfortunately, this place also did not fare as well as we had hoped in some of the quality-based metrics we looked at in this category.