Hickory Creek at Peru

In addition to being a respectable facility overall, this place really excelled in the category of inspections, where it earned an A. Few nursing homes performed better in this area. Perhaps the most important factor we look at in determining our inspection ratings is deficiencies. These deficiencies can be found on a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places with higher grades in this category most likely avoided the more severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. This facility received 5 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered to be major deficiencies. This indicates that the government inspectors didn't deem any of the deficiencies to pose an imminent risk to patient safety or health. A couple minor deficiencies should not lead you to cross a nursing home off your list.

This facility also received an impressive score in our short-term care category. We gave this facility an above average grade of B in that area. In crafting these short-term care ratings, we assess the facility's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. Our goal is to create a barometer for sizing up the rehabilitation services of nursing homes. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these skilled professionals. However, based on the information they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last item we assessed in this category is the percentage of residents who were able to leave the nursing home and return to the community. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's residents were able to return home.

Next, we looked at the nursing category where we awarded this nursing home a grade of C, which is a decent grade. Our nursing score is based on several subcategories, however, the paramount consideration is the number of nurse hours spent with patients. This facility provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per patient each day. This figure is far below average. Lastly, despite not having the most impressive total nursing hours per resident, this facility performed admirably in the metric of preventing major falls. This is often a good indicator that a place has quality controls in place.

This nursing home's least impressive area is long-term care, which is the final category we assessed. It received a lowly F for this area. In spite of a few solid scores in other categories, this score is still alarming so we would like to to make sure you are aware. For long-term care residents, the facility's primary goal is to keep patients healthy and safe. This is different than skilled nursing or short-term care where the goal is to rehabilitate residents. On top of considering the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility administered the vaccine to 98.34711 percent of its patients. Surprisingly, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. With only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, this facility has fewer hospitalizations than the average nursing home. Unfortunately, a few of its other scores in the category weren't as favorable as these.