Hillside Center

One of the reasons this place is a strong facility is that it earned a very impressive inspection rating. Inspections turned out to be its best category grade. In that area, we gave this facility an A-. Our inspection ratings account for several factors found on a nursing home's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we look at is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Nursing homes with better grades in this category generally have few severe deficiencies. While this facility had a few deficiencies on its government inspection report, none were severe based on CMS' deficiency scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This facility received impressive scores in the category of long-term care as well. In fact, it received one of our most elite scores in that area with a score of A-. When facilities receive a grade in this range in this category it generally means it has plenty of staff and is a quality place to live on a permanent basis. Once we looked at the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we then looked at the facility's vaccination records. This nursing home vaccinated 94.89796 percent of its residents for pneumonia, which is higher than the vast majority of nursing homes. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0.02 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

This facility's next best category was its nursing grade, where it received a grade of C. While this didn't quite match its scores in some of the categories discussed above, this is still a decent score. Nursing ratings are tied to quantity of nursing care available. This facility provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a relatively low total compared to most other facilities. Lastly, we also assessed some nursing quality-based metrics. Although this facility got docked a bit for its nursing hours, it actually excelled in some of these quality-based measures. With fewer than five percent of its residents suffering from pressure ulcers, it did well in this subcategory. This is often an indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can many times be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as by employing a system of turning residents even once per day.

Moving on to the final area, this nursing home was awarded an acceptable short-term care score of C. Our short-term care ratings are presumably most critical for folks needing rehabilitation services. Rehabilitation generally utilizes higher levels of highly-skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes not merely nursing, but also physical and speech therapy, as well as other forms of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. However, according to the data this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Finally, we considered the percentage of residents who who were able to eventually return home from this facility. We found that 4.6 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home. This figure was actually quite a bit below the national average.