Overall sentiment: Reviews for Altercare Hartville are highly polarized, with many families and residents reporting excellent therapy, compassionate individual caregivers, and strong rehab outcomes, while another substantial group reports critical lapses in nursing care, hygiene, wound management, safety, and management responsiveness. The most consistent positive theme across reviews is the strength of the therapy program (physical and occupational therapy) and the activities team; the most consistent negative themes are staffing shortages, inconsistent nursing care, infection/wound-care failures, and variable management response.
Care quality and clinical safety: There are repeated positive accounts of attentive, caring nursing aides and excellent therapists who produce good rehab outcomes and help residents regain independence. However, a significant number of reviews describe serious clinical failures: poor wound assessment and wound care that in some cases allegedly led to wound re-opening, infection, sepsis, and even amputation or death. Reviewers also describe inadequate hydration, delayed assistance with toileting, and allegations of neglect. These clinical safety concerns are among the most severe themes and appear tied to both staffing levels and inconsistent clinical oversight. Several reviews mention use of agency nurses and challenging coordination with the facility’s house doctor and outside PCPs, which reviewers say complicated medication and care adjustments.
Staffing, handling, and responsiveness: Many reviewers praise individual staff — nurses, STNAs, activities staff and named employees (e.g., Del, Christine, and others) — describing them as compassionate, family-like, and responsive. Conversely, numerous reports point to chronic short-staffing, long call-light delays, unanswered questions, and patients left unattended. There are multiple reports of rough handling, improper positioning that resulted in bumps or injuries, and bandaid-only responses to apparent injuries. These mixed accounts indicate substantial variability by shift, unit, or individual caregiver, rather than uniformly high or low performance.
Facilities, cleanliness and environment: Some reviewers describe clean hallways, tidy rooms, and well-decorated dining areas with a pleasant communal feel. Others report a deteriorating environment: unpainted walls, back rooms with few windows or TVs, dirty toilets, urine odors, unkempt residents, and overall filth in some areas. These conflicting observations suggest uneven maintenance and cleaning oversight, with certain units or times experiencing significant shortcomings.
Activities, dining and community life: The facility receives frequent praise for its activities program — varied weekly offerings, excursions, concerts, guest speakers, and an engaged activities director. Many reviewers say residents are community-oriented, enjoy social events, and benefit from educational talks. Dining areas are described as spacious and nicely decorated by several families; however, there are also complaints about meal quality, repetitive menus, and fast-food-style offerings at times. Overall, activities and social programming are a strong point for many residents.
Management, communication, and accountability: Communication receives mixed reviews. Some families report regular, timely updates, responsive administration, and good discharge planning. Others criticize poor communication, missing clinical documentation (e.g., hospice charts), inadequate follow-up on theft or incident investigations, billing nightmares, and unhelpful or hostile management. Several reviewers explicitly call out management or supervisory staff as unresponsive or unpleasant, and cite a lack of accountability when serious issues arise. Billing and insurance handling problems were also mentioned by multiple reviewers.
Safety, infection control and serious incident reports: Multiple reviewers raised infection-control concerns (e.g., stomach flu outbreak with perceived poor containment) and pointed to inadequate infection prevention. Several reviewers link inadequate care to severe outcomes such as wound infections, sepsis, amputation, or death; while these are serious allegations reported by families, they also reflect a pattern where clinical oversight and infection control were perceived as insufficient. Theft and missing personal items were also alleged, with at least one reviewer reporting no satisfactory investigation or follow-up.
Accessibility and location: Several reviewers mentioned practical access issues — limited public transportation, poor sidewalks, poorly lit back roads, and difficulty safely walking to the facility. Wheelchair accessibility concerns due to limited sidewalks were also raised. These are external/location-based drawbacks that may affect visits and community access for some families.
Patterns and recommendations: The reviews suggest a facility with clear strengths in therapy/rehab and activities, and with many standout individual staff members who provide compassionate care. However, the recurring and serious negative themes — understaffing, inconsistent nursing care, insufficient wound and infection management, safety lapses, and variable management responsiveness — indicate systemic issues in staffing, clinical oversight, and quality control. Prospective residents and families should weigh the facility’s strong therapy and activities offerings and identify whether the specific unit or team their loved one would be assigned to has consistently positive staffing and management. When considering placement, visitors should ask about current staffing ratios, wound-care protocols, infection control measures, how agency nurses are used, and how management addresses incidents and family concerns. Families already using the facility who observe care issues should document incidents, escalate concerns to administration promptly, and consider involving the resident’s physician or external advocates if wound care, infection control, or safety problems arise.
Summary conclusion: Altercare Hartville delivers highly positive experiences for many, especially in therapy and activity programming, and has a number of individual staff members and teams who are repeatedly praised. At the same time, a substantial portion of reviewers reported critical failures—some with severe consequences—centered on staffing shortages, inconsistent nursing and wound care, hygiene and infection control problems, and management responsiveness. These polarized reports point to uneven performance across units and shifts. Families should conduct careful, specific inquiries and monitor early placement to ensure their loved one’s needs (especially medical/wound care and timely assistance) will be met consistently.
