Best And Worst States For Nursing Homes Care?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states there are about 16,100 nursing homes in the U.S., with about 1.5 million residents. Meanwhile, according to the National Center on Elder Abuse, over 20,000 complaints of abuse, gross neglect, and exploitation on behalf of nursing home and board and care residents were reported in 2003.

Now, according to a new state-by-state report by Families for Better Care, a Florida-based nursing home advocacy group, there is widespread abuse and neglect in our nation’s nursing homes, with an abundant lack of staffing. While Alaska, Hawaii, and Mainescored “superior” grades and ranked among America’s best nursing home states, Texas, Georgia, Louisiana, and Tennesseeeach scored below average. New York, as well, was one of 11 states in the country to receive failing grades.

For the study, Families for Better Care ranked and graded states on eight different federal quality measures. These included the number of hours both registered nurses and certified nurse assistants gave each resident per day, the number of registered nurses working at the facility, the number of direct care staff members, health inspection outcomes, ombudsman complaints, and deficiencies reported. These measures were then compiled, arranged, and compared, with researchers assigning a letter grade based on each state’s comparative ranking. The state’s final grade was calculated by averaging the assigned grades to each qualitative measure.

As a result of all of these measurements, the researchers came up with the top 10 states with overall superior grades. These included, in order, Alaska, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Hawaii,Oregon, Main, Utah, Idaho, South Dakota, and North Dakota. The results also showed the lowest ranked states, all with failing grades. These included, in order, Texas, Louisiana, Indiana,Oklahoma, Missouri, New Mexico, New York, Michigan, Nevada,Illinois, and Iowa.

To read report click here.