The Whitehall of Deerfield Healthcare

Degelmom

husband was just at Whitehall of Deerfield for 3 weeks. Generally, it was a clean, well run efficient facility with caring staff. PT was 2x day, 5 days and Val was excellent! The food was actually pretty good! And there were always lots of alternative choices. As he started to feel better, we were able to enjoy cute ice cream parlor and beautiful patio too. They even have free valet M-F. of course there's 'no place like Home', but if we ever need rehab again, we would choose Whitehall! Thanks to the wonderful staff!

Debi Hartel

The rooms are nice. The day staff are very good. One of the night staff is terrible. She is absolutely miserable. Not sure why they would keep such an employee. Must be desperate. I was here for a broken leg so didn't use any amenities.

BehnFarris

*BEWARE* The building is old, dark, and smelly. Beds are small, not to hospital standards, with iron, yes iron, bed rails and uncomfortable (I’m 5’1”). There was dried blood on the carpet from the previous resident in my room (why carpet if they can’t keep it clean?). You can’t adjust the heat/air so bring a fan or as directed by a nurse place towels over the heat register. If you’re a vegetarian plan on having someone bring you food, though there will be no reimbursement for not eating their food. You will be brought your meals of their choosing then they will collect the uneaten meal and throw it away. I requested no food, and they stated we are required to bring it. The window in my room was broken and wide open in January (I was on the main floor), anyone could step right through it from the outside. The worse part was the care. I had sepsis due to a bile leak and only a single nurse, Melissa (who cared for me twice per week, during second shift) understood how to care for my JP-Drains which were in place to extract the toxic bile from my abdomen. This included tracking the output and flushing the tubes sutured to my abdomen to prevent blood clots, per orders from my hospital physicians this needed to be perform three times per day. the first 5-days no one tended to my drains, I did the best I could myself. I spoke with the lead nurse who said she would take care of it, however that meant documenting that it needed to be done but no one provided a demo to the other nurses so the drains went uncared for. I had nurses state they’ve never done this before and can I (the patient) show them how? Some nurses picked up the drain and said “it looks okay to me” and no further steps were taken (no flushing of abdomen or documenting “no bile in drain”) This tracking is critical; it’s an indicator to the intervention radiology doctors when it’s safe to remove the drain. Nor was this done at anytime three times per day. After Melissa (not the lead nurse) advocated for me the average was once per day. This lack of care included significant delays getting the drains removed because there was initially no data or erroneous data for the doctor to reference. I’m a data analyst / software coder in my professional life and I found a SIGNIFICANT error in their data. A single output measurement was programmatically copied two additional times per day, over inflating the output numbers. This is a VERY serious error. It shows more output than what was actually occurring and the doctors use this info to make decisions on next steps (leave drain in if volume doesn’t decline, take drain out if volume declines). These drains are sutured both externally to the abdomen and also to internal organs through long silicone tubes. I had multiple drains 3-4, which hung like utters on a cow from my stomach. They hurt! My OT/PT would have been more effective if the staff was capable and did their job and the drains were removed based on the true outputs. The documents I have at home from WH do not match my data. It shows no lapse in caring for my drains at any point during my stay and the erroneous 2x inflated daily output was never corrected. Even though nurse Melissa agreed the data reflected fictitious double and triple over counting. My OT resource was respectful & skilled. My PT resource exhibited OCD. The day I demanded to be discharged (2-weeks early) he had berated me after I had a procedure and was in pain that I participate in PT - he simply would NOT leave my room. He argued with me, I asked him to leave, he would not. This is unacceptable and intimidating! This is conduct unbecoming of a staff member. He wore me down then immediately regretted his actions as I stood up, grabbed my walker and started moving. He panicked when he saw my gate was unstable and tried to redact his request. I was in so much pain I was unable to do anything else. That incident and knowing my drains were not coming out based on lack of care, motivated me to demand discharge. I went home, followed my personal physician’s orders and made faster progress than I did at Whitehall. Longer stays don’t necessarily equate to improved health, rather more money into the facility. I didn’t have a shower while at Whitehall even though it was listed on my plan because the CNAs didn’t know how to cover my drains/bandages and IV PICC (I was there several weeks, I felt gross and embarrassed as I had doctor appointments and procedures.) This just made me feel like I didn’t matter to Whitehall. They go through your personal effects when you’re not in your room and don’t disclose they’ve done it. They took my asthma inhaler (and ulcer meds) replacing the inhaler with one that had no inhalations left, how unbelievably misleading!! My inhaler came with me from the hospital, with slightly less than 100 inhalations. After using the decoy (unbeknownst to me) for a few days I wasn’t getting breathing relief, then I noticed the 0 of 0 inhalations. Was this an experiment on behalf of WH? Does the patient really need an asthma inhaler? Who else had this inhaler in their mouth before me? I called the nurse and the internal pharmacist said this was absolutely warranted and I paid yet again for another marked-up inhaler. Why? I found my original inhaler and ulcer meds in a ziplock bag placed by the staff in my luggage when going home. Also very important: two doses of IV Ertapenem antibiotic were missed during my stay (this must be infused once daily at approx the same time) as only a CNA retuned my request for help and she stated she’d get someone to help. No one came. The antibiotic is powerful and the documentation states “MISSED DOSE: It is important to get each dose of this medication as scheduled. If you miss a dose, ask your doctor or pharmacist right away for a new dosing, if you skip doses, your infection may not be completely treated and the bacteria may become resistant to antibiotics.“ They do creepy “bed checks” with younger men dressed in all black. I had sepsis and as a result couldn’t sleep (though I found out upon discharge my hospitalist prescribed a sleeping pill that was never offered to me, same with pain medication). A man entered my room in the middle of the night, and stood inside the doorway very still with the door closed. I asked what he was doing in my room and startled he said “I’m doing a bed check”, I requested him to leave. On a separate occurrence, I had a small refrigerator in my room to keep my liquid nutrition and water and a different man dressed in black (not doing a bed check) darted in, in a crouched position, opened my personal refrigerator and took an item out. What gives? I’m not sure what their expertise is for rehabilitation. The person who decided on this place for me did not listen to my doctor’s recommendation for a different facility which was a longer commute, nor did they ask if WH was skilled at caring for my illness. One additional fact, due to sepsis I was unable to eat for many weeks, I lost a significant amount of weight. My albumin (measure of protein in blood) was low 1.4. Average range 3.4 to 5.4 g/dL. The MD at the hospital who evaluated me for PT/OT stated patient is malnourished and anorexic - no more than three 30-minute PT/OT sessions per week until nutrition and albumin is within normal range. Whether this was communicated or not, my advocates were ill equipped or simply did not care or know how to advocate for me, so they just “trusted” in the WH staff to do the right thing. Starting my second day I was doing three hours of PT/OT daily. I could barely stand. I should never have been placed in this position. Just because the title states SNF / “rehabilitation” doesn’t mean they ‘re “skilled” or one size fits all. Make sure you have a POA of trusted resources, don’t leave this to chance. Children of geriatric or dementia patients, stand-guard for your parents as other reviewers have stated. If you are able to advocate for yourself, ask your physician what the best rehab facility is for you. If you don’t feel you can trust your physician then find a new one until you do.

johnny2v

Whitehall does provide good care. The therapists and nurses are generally attentive and appear to be genuinely focused on helping their patients. The CNAs are likely to pester your loved one daily for a home-health job. The truly appallingly aspect of my family's experience is the administration. Theyterrified my mother, making her think that Whitehall was going to throw her on the streets. We had to order the admin team to stay away from her. Then when it came to her discharge, they released her without her meds, didn't have any prescriptions ordered for her, and wouldn't provide us with her list of medications, dossages, etc. that the Whitehall doctor had prescribed.

n4381l

My mother stayed here after knee surgery and had a wonderful experience. The staff was friendly and attentive to her needs. The facility offer many amenities and the food was phenomenal. The white glove service topped it all off.

the worst !

The care here is terrible. Most of the staff is more interested in magazine or when there shift is going to be over. Up until this past weak the care was ok.They ran out of my sisters med for her 4pm dose so they told my bother that was there at the time it was on its way from Skokie and would be there by 5. At 5 they told him 6 at 6 they told him 7 At 7 they told him 20 minutes. By 9 it was still not there. I called them they put me hold for13 minutes. I told them I have a 90 year old sick Father I was with and I am going to be there in20 minutes if med is not there I will all my own dr to take care of this matter. I get there at 10 pm it is still not there. At 10.15 in arrives. I have never heard of anything in my life.A medical facility runs out of a med a patient is taking and it takes6 hous to get it.i thought she was there to make sure she had good care? I was wrong I would not recommend anyone to go there.very disappointing.