Symphony of Hanover Park

The primary reason this nursing home received a decent overall score is its impeccable government inspections in recent years. We gave it one of our higher grades in that area, with an A-. This is a much better grade than the place's overall score, which was decent but certainly not elite. Inspection grades weigh several factors included in a nursing home's inspection reports. One key criteria we weigh heavily is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Places with higher grades in this category tend to have very few severe deficiencies. Fortunately, although this nursing home had a few minor dings on its report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means that the inspectors didn't deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. A couple minor deficiencies shouldn't lead you to cross a nursing home off your list.

Another one of this nursing home's more favorable category scores came in the category of short-term care. In that area, we gave this facility a B. It actually performed better than most nursing homes in this category. Our short-term care ratings are probably most important for those in need of a nursing home for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically requires more highly-skilled nursing. This means not only nursing, but also physical and speech therapy, as well as other variations of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these skilled professionals. However, according to the data this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final item we looked at in this area is the percentage of residents who ultimately were able to return home from the nursing home. We found that 5.7 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.

Next, we looked at the nursing category where we awarded this nursing home a grade of B-, which is a decent grade. Our nursing grade includes several datapoints, however, the most important consideration is the number of nurse hours spent with patients. This facility provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a relatively low total compared to most other facilities. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics. Although this nursing home got docked a bit for its nursing hours per resident, it excelled in some of these quality metrics. With less than five percent of its residents experiencing pressure ulcers, it fared well in this statistic. This can be an indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as having a policy of turning patients more frequently.

Moving on to the next category, this nursing home did not perform well. Due to a rock bottom grade of F in long-term care, this is this nursing home's worst category grade. If you are looking for services other than rehabilitation, you should take a close look at long-term care ratings. In addition to considering the quantity of care provided by nurses and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility gave the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients. Surprisingly, this nursing home 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. Sadly, some of its other scores in the category were not as favorable as these.