Hickory Creek at Peru

In addition to being a great overall grade, this facility also received A+ health inspections in recent years. Its inspections were virtually flawless. Perhaps the most critical factor we look at in calculating our inspection grades is deficiencies. These deficiencies can be found on a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places with better grades in this area typically avoided the most severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. While this nursing home had a few deficiencies on its inspection report, none of them were major deficiencies based on CMS' scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

To add to its impressive assessments in other areas, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A- for our long-term care rating. Facilities that receive this kind of score in this category typically provide consistent 24/7 care to ensure patients are kept in good health. Once we looked at the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination data. This nursing home vaccinated 99.13793 percent of its patients against pneumonia, which is significantly higher than the vast majority of nursing homes. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

This facility is also strong in the area of nursing, where it received a grade of B. It outperformed most nursing homes in this category. The nursing score consists of quite a few subcategories, but the primary consideration is the level of nurse hours spent with patients. This facility provided 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This place performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a nursing home has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can often be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

The next category we scored was short-term care. We awarded this nursing home one of our higher grades in that area, with a grade of B. Although this isn't as favorable as some of this nursing home's other grades, it is nevertheless a fine score. Our short-term care ratings are arguably most meaningful for residents requiring rehabilitation from their nursing home. Rehabilitation usually mandates additional skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing means not just nursing services, but also physical and speech therapy, as well as other types of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not all nursing homes employs these types of nurses. However, according to the information this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last item we considered in this category is the number of patients that ultimately were able to return home from the nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.