South Elgin Rehabilitation & Health Care Center

In addition to being a respectable facility overall, this facility really excelled in the area of inspections, where it received a grade of A-. Few nursing homes performed better in this area. Inspection grades weigh a host of factors included in a nursing home's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we weigh heavily is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Places with higher scores in this area typically have few severe deficiencies. This place received 7 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered severe. This tells you that the inspectors didn't deem any of the deficiencies to be an immediate risk to patient health or safety. Remember that deficiency-free inspections are uncommon in this industry.

We also awarded this nursing home a favorable grade in short-term care. This facility earned a B in this area, which turns out to be one of our more favorable scores. In calculating our short-term care scores, we quantify the facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. Our purpose is to create a scale for sizing up the rehabilitation services of various nursing homes. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the data this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final datapoint we assessed in this category is the percentage of residents who were able to leave the facility and return home. We found that 0 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home.

We also gave this nursing home a decent score in the category of nursing care, with a grade of B-. Our nursing category is based on quite a few factors, many of which are associated with nursing hours. This facility provided just 0.2 hours of nursing care per patient each day. This is a low total compared to most facilities. Lastly, nursing scores also factor in quality-based measures, such as avoiding major falls. Despite not having the most impressive total nursing hours, this facility performed admirably in the area of preventing major falls. This is often a good indicator that a nursing home has quality controls in place. Some falls could be avoided if a facility provides enough nurses to assist its residents.

The next category we analyzed is long-term care, which turned out to be this nursing home's least impressive category. We awarded this facility a grade of D in that category. Naturally, this category hurt the facility's overall profile to a certain degree. Long-term care ratings in this range generally are a bad sign for the quantity and quality of care provided by nurses and aids, as well as the levels of routine medical care available. After looking at the volume of care provided by nurses and other staff, we turned to the facility's vaccination data. We were a bit alarmed this facility vaccinated 75.33633 percent of its residents against pneumonia, which happens to be quite a few points below what we expected. Surprisingly, this facility was actually able to limit hospitalizations. With only 0.02 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, this facility has fewer hospitalizations than the majority of nursing homes. This is its best score in this category.