Presence Heritage Village

One of the many reasons this turned out to be a great nursing home is that it received an A+ long-term care grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this category. When facilities receive this type of score in this category it is typically a good sign for resident care and indicates that the place is well-staffed with nurses and aids. Once we finished looking at the quantity of care provided by nurses, we then analyzed the nursing home's vaccination records. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients against pneumonia, which is an impressive figure. Pneumonia is too frequently a dangerous illness for nursing home patients so we like it when a nursing home doesn't leave this to chance. Lastly, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

This nursing home also received an A+ nursing grade, making it one of the few nursing homes to receive multiple A+ category grades. Our nursing score features a number of subcategories. The most heavily weighted one is the quantity of hours nurses spend with patients. This particular nursing home provided 0.5 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 nursing home Illinois in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as employing a policy of moving a patient more often.

The next category we looked at was inspections, where this facility also received an A+ grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this critical category. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in calculating these inspection scores. One critical factor is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of these deficiencies is usually more meaningful than the number of deficiencies, as some deficiencies are relatively insignificant. While this nursing home 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 means that CMS didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

The final area we scored is short-term care, where this facility was awarded an A. This wrapped up a first-rate report card. Only a select few facilities earned an A- or higher in every category. In computing these short-term care ratings, we quantify the nursing home's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. The objective is to devise a barometer for sizing up the rehabilitation services of different facilities. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. However, according to the information they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Finally, we assessed the number of residents who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 5.6 percent of this facility's patients returned home.