The federal government now has a revamped and simplified approach to its evaluations of nursing homes, in order to make the task of choosing the right one easier for families. Like the system the government uses for rating Medicare health and drug plans, the Nursing Home Compare site now gives nursing homes from 1 to 5 stars, overall and in each of three areas—performance in the latest three quarterly reports in 10 key quality measures, such as the percentage of residents with urinary tract infections; performance in the latest three annual health inspections; and adequacy of both overall staffing and staffing by registered nurses.

Click HERE to learn more about the 10 Worst lists

The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released the ratings for individual homes online this morning.  They included ratings for 32 nursing homes in Wake, Durham, Orange, Chatham and Johnston counties. The ratings were based on health inspections, staffing and various quality measures. The poor ratings reflected such factors as high staff turnover, patients with bedsores, use of restraints and unrelieved pain.

Click HERE to read this Raleigh News & Observer article.