The Lutheran Home at Kane

To go along with its strong overall grade, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A+ for our inspections rating. Arguably the most critical factor we look at in computing our inspection scores is deficiencies. Deficiencies are found on a facility's recent inspection reports. Facilities with higher scores in this category typically dodged the more severe deficiencies involving health risks or even death. While this facility had a few minor dings on its inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you the government inspectors didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This nursing home fared well in our long-term care category. In fact, we awarded it a grade of A- for that area, which turns out to be one of our most favorable grades. When nursing homes receive this kind of score in this category it is typically a good sign for resident care and suggests that the place is well-staffed with nurses aids. After assessing the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we then analyzed the nursing home's vaccination record. This facility vaccinated 99.00333 percent of its residents for pneumonia. Vaccines are critical to keeping patients out of the hospital. Finally, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

This nursing home also received a strong nursing score. In fact, we awarded it an above average grade of B in this area. Nursing scores are primarily based on the nursing home's level of nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This place performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a nursing home has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can frequently be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

The final area we graded was short-term care, in which this facility was given a grade of C. Although this proved to be its weakest category score, this is nevertheless not a terrible score. Our short-term care grade is typically used to assess a nursing home's rehabilitation services. In order to provide highly scored rehabilitation services, facilities generally must offer better levels of highly skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing includes registered nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists and other highly skilled individuals. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not all nursing homes employs these skilled professionals. However, based on the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Lastly, we assessed the percentage of patients who who were able to eventually return home from this facility. We found that 3.4 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home. This figure was actually quite a bit below average.