If you are a member of the so-called “sandwich generation” – those people who are simultaneously caring for children as well as their elderly parents – you may be familiar with U.S. News & World Report’s college rankings. But did you know that U.S. News & World Report also has nursing home ratings? In fact, U.S. News recently evaluated more than 15,000 nursing homes across the country, ultimately including approximately 2000 of those facilities (366 in New Jersey) in its list of Best Nursing Homes.
U.S. News began publishing online ratings of nursing homes in 2009. Until its latest release, the tool used a “snapshot” of the star ratings posted on Nursing Home Compare, a consumer website of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). CMS assigns an overall rating of one to five stars to nursing homes according to their performance in three areas – state-conducted health inspections, nurse staffing and medical quality measures.