Life Care Center of the Willows
1000 Elizabeth Dr, Valparaiso IN 46383 · (219) 464-4858 · 76.09% estimated occupancy 1Updated: Aug 1, 2020 · By Sara Levinsohn
Life Care Center of the Willows is a nursing home located in Valparaiso, Indiana. This city has a population of 78,553 people. Sporting an overall grade of C, this is a decent facility. This grade isn't too far off the city grade for Valparaiso, which is a B-. This nursing home did not meet our expectations in every category we looked at, but it did not receive any rock-bottom grades either. More information about these categories can be found below.
Additional Details:
Accepts Medicare 1 :
Accepts Medicaid 1 : 100 Beds
CCRC :
Government - County
Resident Council:
Family Council:
Medical Staff Hours Per Patient (2019)
Facility Inspections
The primary reason this ended up being a decent nursing home is that it earned an excellent inspection grade. In fact, its inspection grade was far superior to its overall grade. In the inspections category, we gave it an A-. Inspection ratings take several factors into consideration, including deficiencies and substantiated complaints. You can find more information about each of these items by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. While this facility had a few deficiencies on its inspection report, none were severe based on CMS' scale. A few minor deficiencies shouldn't lead you to cross a nursing home off your list.
Nurse Quality
This facility also excelled in the category of nursing, where it received an B+. Our nursing rating is based on several subcategories. The most important variable is the quantity of hours nurses spend with residents. This nursing home averages 3.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics and this nursing home 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 country in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as by employing a policy of moving a patient at least once a day.
Long-term Care Quality
We awarded this nursing home a grade of just D for our long-term care score. This is not one of our better scores. In a long-term care environment, the primary objective is to keep patients as healthy and safe as possible. This is different than skilled nursing or short-term care where the goal is to rehabilitate residents. One of the factors we considered after nursing hours was vaccinations. Fortunately, this facility administered the pneumonia vaccine to 99.64158 percent of its residents. Surprisingly, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. Although it had 1.85 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, its risk adjusted statistic wasn't bad since it had more complex patients.
Short-term Care Quality
The next area we analyzed is short-term care, which turned out to be this nursing home's worst area. We gave this facility a grade of D in that area. In calculating our short-term care scores, we look at the nursing home's levels of highly skilled nursing services, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists occupational therapists and other highly skilled individuals. This score is more often than not a fair measure of the facility's ability to rehabilitate patients. Unfortunately, we found that this nursing home provided fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most other facilities. The final datapoint we assessed in this category is the number of patients who ultimately were able to return home from the nursing home. This nursing home struggled quite a bit in this metric as well, with just 26 percent of its residents returning home. This was well below average.
Overall Rating Over Time
Compared to national and state averages across all facilities.
Life Care Center of the Willows Quality Metrics
Minimizes Pressure Ulcers
This is the percentage of patients who suffered from a pressure ulcer. Pressure ulcers are damage to the skin due to staying in the same position for an excessive period of time.
Percent of Patients with Pressure Ulcers
Lower is Better
Minimizes Serious Falls
This indicates the percent of residents who have had a fall which caused serious injury.
Percent of Patients with Serious Falls
Lower is Better
Minimizes Urinary Tract Infections
This is the percent of residents that sustained a urinary tract infection. These infections may be associated with poor hygiene.
Percent of Patients with UTIs
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Psychotic Medication
This is the percent of residents given antipsychotic drugs. Antipsychotic drugs are given to patients for many medical conditions, including dementia. Sadly, in limited cases, high levels of antipsychotic drug use may mean that a nursing home is using these medications to control patient behavior.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Anxiety Medication
This is the percent of residents who were prescribed antianxiety drugs. These drugs are commonly given to residents experiencing anxiety or depression.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Managing Depression Among Residents
This indicates the percentage of patients demonstrating signs of depression.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriate Vaccine Usage
Measures the percentage of long-term patients that were administered the pneumonia and flu vaccines. Respiratory viruses can be very dangerous for seniors, making these vaccines critical to patient well-being.
Percent of Patients
Higher is Better
Residents Maintain Autonomy
This datapoint is a measure of the percentage of long-term residents that needed more assistance with activities of daily living over time. Activities of daily living include activities such as dressing and taking a bath.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Ability to Keep Residents Mobile
Measures the percentage of long-term care patients who remained mobile levels.
Percentage of Residents
Higher is Better
Hospitalizations
This metric tracks the number of times residents are hospitalized per thousand days of patient care. Staying out of the hospital is key to maintaining the physical health of nursing home patients.
Hospitalizations per 1,000 resident days
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: Rehospitalizations
This metric tracks the number of rehospitalizations per thousand days of short-term care.
Percentage of Residents Rehospitalized
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: ER Visits
This is the number of times residents are sent to the emergency room per 1,000 days of short-term patient care. There is typically a correlation between having fewer emergency room visits and the quality of rehabilitation.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: Facilitates Functional Improvement
This is a measure of the percentage of short-term care residents that experienced functional improvements, such as with activities of daily living. Many argue that this is a reasonable measure of a nursing home's rehabilitation performance.
Percentage of Resident
Higher is Better