Elder Law

Illinois Nursing Home Rankings Help Residents Make Tough Choices

By Levin & Perconti

Reaching the decision to move into a nursing home is typically a difficult one for residents and their families. Following that step, there remains the challenge of determining what area nursing home offers the best environment out of the many options. For example, there are literally thousands of Illinois nursing homes, making it difficult for many local residents to narrow the list down and chose the best facility.

U.S. News is attempting to help by publishing a list of nursing home rankings with online tools to compare local facilities on different criteria. The ratings are created by information culled from a website run by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). A variety of factors are involved in the analysis in an attempt to fairly judge the services and care provided by each facility.

First, reports from health inspections are investigated to determine any consistent problems. The inspections include residents? complaints as well as on-site investigations looking into every aspect of the facility, from food preparation to infection control. Also, nursing staff levels play an important role in the rankings. The health of the residents is of the utmost concern. Having trained medical professionals ready to provided needed care at any moment is a vital part of a superior nursing home. Lastly, quality measures are added to the analysis to determine the specific health conditions at a facility. The number of residents who have experienced falls, suffered certain infections, and other indicators are helpful when assessing the safety of a facility.

Full post as published by Illinois Nursing Home Abuse Blog on February 11, 2011 (boomark / email).