Hilltop Estates

On top of receiving a strong overall score, this nursing home also received excellent government inspections recently. We gave it one of our highest grades in that area, with an A. Inspection ratings are tied to several pieces of information located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Nursing homes that score well in this area have few deficiencies on those reports. Most importantly, these nursing homes generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with endangerment of patients. This nursing home was hit with 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but fortunately none of the deficiencies were considered to be major deficiencies. This means that the inspectors didn't consider any of the deficiencies to cause an imminent threat to resident safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Adding to its high-end resume, this nursing home also was given a dominant long-term care grade, with a score of A. Nursing homes that excel in this category typically provide residents with more supervision and stay on top of routine healthcare services. In addition to assessing the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we analyzed the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents, which is very impressive. Pneumonia tragically can be a dangerous ailment for nursing home residents so we prefer when a nursing home doesn't take any chances. Finally, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had only 0.02 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

Another strong feature for this facility is that it received an impressive nursing grade. In that area, we awarded this facility a grade of B+. When calculating a facility's nursing grade, we assess the number of hours nurses are with residents as well as the skill levels of those nurses. This facility provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality-based metrics and this facility excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any place the nation in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as by having a policy of turning a resident at least once a day.

In the last category, this nursing home also was awarded a very strong short-term care score, with a B+. This topped off a very strong report card. Short-term care scores are meaningful for people needing rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally requires more highly-skilled nursing. This includes a broad range of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other types of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. However, based on the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last datapoint we looked at in this area is the percentage of residents who were able to leave the nursing home and return home. We discovered that 4.1 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home.