Hilltop Center

Although we gave this facility a terrible overall grade, we awarded it a grade of C for our nursing rating. Nursing ratings are largely based on a facility's level of nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a much lower figure than we are used to seeing. Despite having low quantities of nursing care, this place excelled in some of the quality measures we looked at. It performed well in terms of minimizing its residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. We consider these areas to be good measures of the quality of nursing care. In many cases, the quality of nursing care is every bit as important as the number of hours of care provided.

This nursing home's next highest score was short-term care, but it still earned a grade of just D in that area. This is still a well below average score. In calculating these short-term care ratings, we look at the nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. The objective is to create a scale for comparing the rehabilitation services of nursing homes. With a grade of this caliber in this category, we weren't surprised to learn this nursing home was below average in the two key staffing figures we focus on. The facility provided substantially fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most nursing homes. Finally, we considered the number of patients that who were able to eventually return home from this nursing home. This facility didn't fare well here either. In fact, we found that just 4.5 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home. This figure was well off the national average.

This nursing home received a grade of just D in the area of inspections. Inspection scores account for a host of factors included in a facility's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we consider is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Tragically, this place had one category L deficiency. This type of deficiency indicates widespread threats to patient health or safety. A deficiency in this category is very damaging to a nursing home's inspection score. In addition to having severe deficiencies, this nursing home was cited by CMS for possible abuse or neglect. This is generally a really bad sign. We would never recommend this facility.

The last category we rated is long-term care, in which this facility was given a very poor score in this area also. Sadly, it received an abysmal F for this category, which is obviously somewhat alarming. In a long-term care environment, the primary objective is to maintain residents' quality of life and keep them safe. In addition to assessing the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home administered the vaccine to 99.75903 percent of its residents, which is more than the average nursing home. Surprisingly, this facility also keeps its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days. Unfortunately, a few of its other scores in the category weren't as favorable as these.