Health Grades rates US nursing homes

Nursing home deficiencies causing actual harm to residents declinedfrom 7.0 percent to 6.5 percent from 2003 to 2004, while patient abuseremained stable at 17 percent of complaints, according to a newanalysis of the ratings HealthGrades annually gives to nearly everynursing home in the country. Overall, the deficiencies cited pernursing home declined 2.0 percent from 2003 and 2004, the analysisfound.

“We are not seeing the declines in actual harm to the nation’s 1.6million nursing home residents that we should,” said Samantha Collier,MD, vice president of medical affairs for HealthGrades, the leadinghealthcare ratings company. “But we did discover some interesting factsthat will help people make a smarter decision, including the findingthat the top ten nursing homes in each state tend to have nearly halfas many beds as the worst ten in each state – something everyone shouldthink about when choosing a nursing home.”

The ratings for each of 15,375 Medicare/Medicaid certifiednursing homes can be found in HealthGrades’ Nursing Home Quality ReportsTM, available for a fee to consumers at www.healthgrades.com.

Read more at Eureka Alerts.  Then access CMS’s nursing home comparison information at
http://www.medicare.gov/NHCompare/Home.asp