Luther Manor Communities - Hillcrest

To go along with its strong overall grade, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A for our inspections rating. Inspection scores weigh a host of factors found on a nursing home's inspection report. One key criteria we look at is the number and severity of deficiencies. Places with better grades in this category generally have very few of these severe deficiencies. Fortunately, although this facility had a few minor dings on its inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you that the inspectors didn't deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. The fact that none of the deficiencies were severe leaves us less concerned with this inspection report.

Adding to its profile, this facility also earned a grade of B for its nursing rating. This is a well above average score in this category. Nursing ratings are mostly tied to a nursing home's level of nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures 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 facility the state 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 employing a protocol of turning a patient more often.

Additionally, this facility also was given favorable long-term care scores in our assessment. Indeed, we awarded them one of our stronger scores in that category, with a score of B. Long-term care grades in this range generally require both around the clock care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine medical care. On top of assessing the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility gave the vaccine to 79.503105 percent of its patients, which is a few points below what we expected. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

The next category we looked at is short-term care. We awarded it a B- in this category. This is a fair grade in this category. In calculating our short-term care scores, we look at a nursing home's levels of skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists speech therapists and other licensed professionals. This category is generally a solid assessment of a nursing home's ability to rehabilitate patients. Fortunately, it appear that this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. However, based on the information this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Lastly, we considered the percentage of residents who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this facility's residents returned home. At most facilities, closer to half of their residents are able to return home so this figure is below average.