U.S. News Media Group Releases America's Best Nursing Homes

WASHINGTON, Jan. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- U.S. News Media Group today unveiled its 2010 America's Best Nursing Homes rankings online at www.usnews.com/nursinghomes. As the American population ages at an unprecedented rate, the U.S. News Best Nursing Homes guide is a valuable resource for families facing the difficult process of looking for a nursing home.

America's Best Nursing Homes provides objective, quality information on over 15,000 homes nationwide and identifies facilities with excellent standards of care. On USNews.com, visitors can find the exclusive U.S. News Honor Roll of 11 homes that received perfect five-star ratings from the federal government for four straight quarters in all three areas in which homes are judged. Also featured: surprising information about the special care being delivered by progressive nursing homes, powerful search tools, and helpful advice on the best way to find a nursing home for a loved one. Best Nursing Homes also includes a list of facilities with long histories of inadequate care.

"Finding a good nursing home that meets the needs of your parent or loved one is difficult and often confusing," said Avery Comarow, Health Rankings Editor at U.S. News & World Report. "The Best Nursing Homes rankings and search tools were designed to help families navigate through the best information available, and find homes based on individual needs, such as proximity to family, religious affiliation, and insurance coverage."

The 2010 America's Best Nursing Homes rankings, which will be updated quarterly, rely on data and ratings from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. As part of its Nursing Home Compare program, the agency gives homes one to five stars according to how well they do in the three categories of health inspections, nurse staffing, and measures of care. For the America's Best Nursing Homes rankings, U.S. News added features to boost reliability and flexibility in search, including the following:

• Ranking the homes: To get at relative quality, homes are presented in tiers within each star category, based on their total stars for all three specific measures.
• Honor Roll: Homes that have received four straight quarters of perfect five-star ratings by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in all three categories.
• Special Focus Facilities: Homes that have been singled out by the state where they operate and by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services because of notably long histories of subpar or inconsistent health inspections.
• Combined search: Visitors to USNews.com can conduct multifaceted searches that extend beyond geography to include factors such as specific star ratings and whether a home has a religious affiliation.
• Automated help: Visitors can plug in partial names and other bits of information they have about nursing homes and a list of homes will be automatically generated.

In addition to the rankings, America's Best Nursing Homes provides information and tips for considering long-term care options, including Nursing Homes' New Face, 6 Tips for Long-Term-Care Shoppers, and The Troubled Histories of Special Focus Facilities. The February issue of U.S. News & World Report magazine will also include a list of 173 homes that received either perfect or close to perfect ratings in all 3 federal rating categories, plus the highest possible rating in health inspections, in the most recent federal analysis.

For more information on America's Best Nursing Homes, visit www.usnews.com/nursinghomes.

About the U.S. News Media Group

The U.S. News Media Group is a multi-platform digital publisher of news and analysis, which includes the monthly U.S. News & World Report magazine, the digital-only U.S. News Weekly magazine, www.usnews.com, and www.rankingsandreviews.com. Focusing on Health, Money & Business, Education, and Public Service/Opinion, the U.S. News Media Group has earned a reputation as the leading provider of service news and information that improves the quality of life of its readers. The U.S. News Media Group's signature franchises include its News You Can Use® brand of journalism and its "America's Best" series of consumer guides that include rankings of colleges, graduate schools, hospitals, health plans, and more.

SOURCE U.S. News Media Group