Life Care Center of the Willows is an average-sized nursing home located in Valparaiso, Indiana. Featuring an overall grade of C, this is a solid facility. This grade isn't too far off the city grade for Valparaiso, which is a B-. This facility didn't meet our expectations in all of our categories, but it didn't receive any rock-bottom grades either. Additional information about its category grades is available below.
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Life Care Center of the Willows
- Nursing Home
Updated Nov 1, 2023 by Nick Lata
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- Accepts Medicare 1
- Accepts Medicaid 1
- No CCRC
- Has Resident Council
- No Family Council
- For profit - Corporation
- Offers Post-Acute Care
- Offers Inpatient Rehab
- Offers Outpatient Rehab
Specialized Services
- Personal Care
- Home Making
- Transportation
- Speech Therapy
- IV Antibiotic Therapy
- Wound Care
- Occupational Therapy
- Diabetes Management
- Physical Therapy
- Nutritional Counseling
- Recreational Therapy
- Orthopedic Rehabilitation
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Registered Staff Hours
Facility Inspections
One of the reasons this is a decent facility is that it received a favorable inspection grade. In this area, we awarded this nursing home a B. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in calculating these inspection scores. One key factor is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of these deficiencies is usually more important than the number of deficiencies, as some deficiencies are quite insignificant. While this place had some minor dings on its government inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means that CMS didn't deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. A couple minor deficiencies shouldn't stop you from considering a nursing home.
Long-term Care Quality
We also awarded this nursing home a respectable grade in the area of long-term care, with a grade of B-. If you are looking for anything other than rehabilitation, you should take a close look at each facility's long-term care grades. After assessing the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we then looked at the nursing home's vaccination record. This facility vaccinated 92.753624 percent of its residents against pneumonia, which happens to be a few points below what we expected but still a decent figure. Nevertheless, this place excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.
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Nurse Quality
Next, we looked at the nursing category where we awarded this nursing home a grade of B-, which is a decent grade. The nursing rating consists of quite a few subcategories, many of which are tied to nursing hours. This facility provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident on a daily basis. This is a relatively low total compared with most nursing homes. Finally, nursing ratings also factor in quality-based metrics, such as avoiding major falls. Despite not having the most impressive total nursing hours per resident, this nursing home actually performed admirably in the metric of preventing major falls. This is usually a good indicator that a place has sufficient quality controls in place. Many falls could be avoided if a nursing home provides enough nurses aids to assist its residents.
Short-term Care Quality
This nursing home's weakest category is short-term care, which is the final category we analyzed. For this area, we gave this nursing home a D. Short-term care grades are based on the nursing home's quantity of skilled nursing services. This means a wide range of services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, not to mention other variations of therapy. Given its grade in this area, we were not surprised to find that this nursing home was well below average in terms of its quantity of registered nurse and physical therapy hours offered to its patients based on the data we looked at. Honestly, this was about what we expected here. The final item we assessed in this category is the percentage of patients that were able to return home from the nursing home. This nursing home struggled quite a bit in this metric as well, with just 4.1 percent of its patients returning home. This was quite a bit below the national average.
Rating Over Time
Compared to national and state averages across all facilities.
Life Care Center of the Willows Quality Metrics
Minimizes Pressure Ulcers
In Life Care Center of the Willows, 7.55% of Patients had Pressure Ulcers
This figure gauges the percent of long-term stay patients that are suffering from pressure ulcers. We find that pressure ulcers are a solid barometer of nursing care quality.
Minimizes Serious Falls
In Life Care Center of the Willows, 0.48% of Patients had Serious Falls
This indicates the percentage of residents that sustained a fall which resulted in major injury.
Minimizes Urinary Tract Infections
In Life Care Center of the Willows, 0% of Patients had UTIs
This indicates the percent of patients who sustained a urinary tract infection. Urinary tract infections are often linked to lower quality nursing care. Better hygiene protocols can reduce the number likelihood of residents sustaining infections. Note that this statistic is sometimes skewed by the fact that nursing homes have varying reporting standards for these infections.
Appropriately Uses Anti-Psychotic Medication
In Life Care Center of the Willows, 11.05% of Patients use Anti-Psychotic Medication
This is a measure of the percent of long-term stay patients which are given antipsychotic medication. High levels of antipsychotic drug use may suggest that a nursing home is using these drugs to subdue residents in scenarios where such medications are not medically required. However, some facilities may need to rely on these medications due to an increased number of residents suffering from Alzheimer's or other dementias.
Appropriately Uses Anti-Anxiety Medication
In Life Care Center of the Willows, 12.37% of Patients use Anti-Anxiety Medication
This tells you the percentage of patients who were given antianxiety drugs. These drugs are commonly given to residents experiencing anxiety and depression.
Managing Depression Among Residents
In Life Care Center of the Willows, 2.86% of Patients
This indicates the percent of patients who are exhibiting signs of depression.
Appropriate Vaccine Usage
In Life Care Center of the Willows, 95.94% of Patients
Measures the percentage of long-term patients that were given the flu and pneumonia vaccines. Respiratory viruses can be deadly for seniors, making these vaccines critical to patient care.
Residents Maintain Autonomy
In Life Care Center of the Willows, 17.34% of Patients
This metric is a measure of the percent of long-term care residents that needed more assistance with activities of daily living over time. ADL's include activities such as taking medications and continence.
Ability to Keep Residents Mobile
In Life Care Center of the Willows, 20.74% of Residents
This tells you the percentage of patients who were able to retain mobility over time. Retaining mobility is often a good sign for residents' health.
Hospitalizations
In Life Care Center of the Willows, 0.03 Hospitalizations per 1,000 resident days
This datapoint is a measure of the number of hospitalizations per 1,000 days of patient care. Avoiding hospitalizations is important to the physical health of nursing home patients.
Short-term Care: Rehospitalizations
In Life Care Center of the Willows, 20.74% of Residents Rehospitalized
This tells you the number of times residents are rehospitalized per 1,000 days of short-term care. There is usually a correlation between avoiding hospitalizations and a nursing homes short-term rehabilitation performance.
Short-term Care: ER Visits
In Life Care Center of the Willows, 8.51% of Patients
This metric tracks the number of times residents are sent to the emergency room per thousand days of short-term patient care.
Short-term Care: Facilitates Functional Improvement
In Life Care Center of the Willows, 68.64% of Resident
This tells you the percent of short-term patients who experienced functional improvements, such as with activities of daily living. Higher levels of independence with ADL's often correlates with higher quality rehabilitation services.
Scores for Valparaiso, IN
- Overall Rating has a grade of B-minus
- Nurse Rating has a grade of B-minus
- Long-term Care Rating has a grade of B-minus
- Short-term Care Rating has a grade of B-minus
- Inspection Rating has a grade of A
Looking for more options? Valparaiso, Indiana has 4 other nursing homes
Nearby Hospitals
- Porter Regional HospitalAcute Care Hospitals 5.05 miles away85 East Us Hwy 6 Valparaiso Indiana 46383Proprietary(219) 983-8300
- St Mary Medical Center IncAcute Care Hospitals 11.4 miles away1500 S Lake Park Ave Hobart Indiana 46342Voluntary non-profit - Private(219) 942-0551
- Franciscan Health Crown PointAcute Care Hospitals 17.56 miles away1201 S Main St Crown Point Indiana 46307Voluntary non-profit - Church(219) 757-6100
- Methodist Hospitals IncAcute Care Hospitals 18.23 miles away600 Grant St Gary Indiana 46402Voluntary non-profit - Private(219) 886-4000
- La Porte HospitalAcute Care Hospitals 18.89 miles away1007 Lincolnway La Porte Indiana 46350Voluntary non-profit - Private(219) 326-1234
Nearby Dialysis
- Davita - Valparaiso0.87 miles away606 E Lincolnway Valparaiso Indiana 46383Dialysis Stations: 22 (219) 531-1299
- Valparaiso Dialysis1.54 miles away2711 Leonard Drive Suite 100 Valparaiso Indiana 46383Dialysis Stations: 12 (219) 462-1233
- Fmc - Portage Dialysis Center8.84 miles away5950 Us Highway 6 Portage Indiana 46368Dialysis Stations: 17 (219) 762-5731
- Davita - Portage9.03 miles away5823 Us Hwy 6 Portage Indiana 46368Dialysis Stations: 16 (219) 764-0564
- Dsi - Coffee Creek Dialysis9.28 miles away3100 Village Point, Suite 101 Chesterton Indiana 46304Dialysis Stations: 19 (219) 395-8020
- Dialysis Center of Portage LLC9.37 miles away5615 Us Highway 6 Portage Indiana 46368Dialysis Stations: 17 (219) 762-4848
- Davita - Chesterton9.7 miles away711 Plaza Drive, Suite 6 Chesterton Indiana 46304Dialysis Stations: 12 (219) 926-6049
- Fmc - Hobart11.91 miles away1330 S. Wisconsin Street Hobart Indiana 46342CMS Rating: 5 stars Dialysis Stations: 24 (219) 947-9289