Hickory Creek at Peru

Hickory Creek at Peru is a small non-profit nursing home in Peru, Indiana. This turns out to be a middle of the pack facility, with an overall grade of C. This grade was right in line with the city grade in Peru, which is admittedly a little below average nationally. The best part of this facility's profile is its exemplary inspection grade. Inspection grades are discussed in the next paragraph.

This facility earned a solid overall grade as described above, but we really wanted to point out its nearly flawless inspections in recent years. We awarded them an impressive grade of A in this category. Our inspection scores weigh a host of factors included in a nursing home's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we rely on is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with better grades in this category usually have few severe deficiencies. Although this place had some deficiencies on its government inspection report, none of them were severe based on CMS' scale. A couple of minor deficiencies should not stop you from considering a nursing home.

This nursing home also was awarded a strong score in our short-term care category. We gave this facility a better than average grade of B in this category. In our short-term care assessment, we attempt to create a sound barometer for rehabilitation. In this process, we assess the nursing home's scope of highly-skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as occupational therapy. One reason for this facility's strong score in this category is that it provides more care with registered nurses to its residents than the average nursing home. Lastly, we looked at the number of residents who were able to return home from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home.

The next highest grade we gave this nursing home in any area came in the category of nursing, where we gave it a grade of C. We scrutinized the skill-level of nurses working for the nursing home, as well as the number of hours those nurses spent with residents, in calculating our grade in this area. This place provides 3.4 hours of nursing care per patient per day. Out of this total, more than one quarter of those hours were provided by registered nurses, which is one of the more highly skilled levels of nurses. We attach more significance to these skilled nursing hours in preparing our nursing scores. Finally, this nursing home was relatively weak in two of the major datapoints we look at, with subpar scores for minimizing its patients' major falls and pressure ulcers.

This facility's weakest category was long-term care, which is the final area we looked at. Sadly, it received a lowly F in this area. Despite several acceptable scores in other categories, this grade is nevertheless alarming so we would like to to make a note of it. For prospective residents looking for a permanent place to live as opposed to rehabilitation, long-term care grades are a key measure. After assessing the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we then analyzed the nursing home's vaccination data. This facility vaccinated 96.20253 percent of its residents against pneumonia, which is better than the vast majority of nursing homes. To our surprise, this place was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 1.64 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days. Sadly, a few of its other scores in the category were not as favorable as these.