Manor Care Health Services - Wheaton

In addition to receiving a great overall rating, this facility performed even better in the area of inspections which is based on the facility's recent government inspection reports. We awarded it an A for this category, which is one of our highest scores. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in computing these inspection ratings. One critical factor is health deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of deficiencies is usually more meaningful than the quantity of deficiencies, as some of these are quite minor. This facility was hit with 9 deficiencies on its inspection report, but fortunately none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe deficiencies. This means that CMS did not deem any of the deficiencies to create an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Another strong feature for this nursing home is that it was given a favorable long-term care grade. In fact, this proved to be its second best category score. In that category, we awarded this facility a B+. In a long-term care setting, the primary objective is to keep patients healthy and safe. This is different than skilled nursing or short-term care where the goal is to rehabilitate residents. One of the factors we considered on top of nurse's aid hours was vaccinations. This facility administered the pneumonia vaccine to 80.26315 percent of its patients. While its vaccination rate was a bit lower than we hoped for, we were pleased to find place was able to limit hospitalizations. It had only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

In addition, this facility also received favorable nursing grades this year. In fact, we awarded them one of our better scores in that area, with a grade of B+. Nursing grades are largely based on the facility's level of nurse staffing. This particular nursing home provided 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality-based metrics and this place 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 often be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as employing a system of turning a patient at least once a day.

In the final area, this facility also was awarded a first-rate short-term care grade, with a grade of B+. This completed a very strong profile. Short-term care scores are critical for patients looking for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally mandates more skilled nursing. This means a broad scope of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other forms of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. However, according to the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Finally, we assessed the number of residents who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 4.7 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home.