A new state tool to research and weigh different nursing communities around Ohio went live Wednesday, Gov. Mike DeWine and Ohio Department of Aging Director Ursel McElroy announced at a news conference.
The Nursing Home Quality Navigator is an online database that indexes federal and state data about Ohio’s hundreds of long-term care facilities, McElroy said.
It is searchable by location and by individual nursing home. A profile on each place features its Medicare and Medicaid star-rating, details its bed numbers and staff ratio, and flags whether it’s been cited for abuse, among dozens of other data points. It also allows users to weigh locations side-by-side.
McElroy said what's on the dashboard is not new information. It has just now been put together in one place, publicly.
“I think it is unfortunate if there's ever a time where someone needs to make this life-changing decision and that information just isn't there, or it's not there in a way that they can easily search and make an informed decision,” she said. “That’s what we’re looking to do with this.”
The idea came as a recommendation by a governor's task force looking into Ohio’s nursing homes and long-term care facilities. DeWine said task force members often heard that information about communities for the state’s elderly population was too scattered to be beneficial.
The tool is for consumers, not necessarily regulators, DeWine said. But he said it could serve that purpose, too—providing incentive for a nursing home to increase their quality of care because they've been highlighted against the others out there.
“More information does hold people more accountable,” DeWine said.
The department—in partnership with InnovateOhio, which built the database—will roll out a second version in two to three months, she said.
