From The Columbus DIspatch – By Danae King –
Families, caregivers and older adults have a new tool to search for long-term care.
The Ohio Nursing Home Quality Navigator, introduced this week by the Ohio Department of Aging and Gov. Mike DeWine, offers detailed information about nursing homes across the state.
“It is our hope that … the new online Navigator will also incentivize nursing homes to continue reaching higher to deliver the very best quality of care and quality of life possible to the benefit of our state’s nursing home residents and those who love and care for them,” Ursel J. McElroy, the state’s aging director, said in a statement.
The new tool includes a searchable map of nursing homes in the state and information including the facility’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) star rating and comparable state average. It also features the addresses of facilities; staffing statistics; number of beds; methods of payment; resident satisfaction survey scores; number of health and safety violations; and if facilities have a substandard quality of care.
Users can also compare two or three nursing homes and see if a specific facility allows pets, alcohol or smoking and if it has any religious affiliation.
The tool — Aging.Ohio.gov/Navigator — can be used on phones, tablets and computers.
Why was the tool created?
The tool was created after the Governor’s Nursing Home Quality and Accountability Task Force, which was appointed a year ago, traveled the state to talk to nursing home residents and their family members, friends and caregivers.
“Time and again, these people told us that the information they needed to make one of the most important decisions of their lives — where to live and receive care — was scattered across a variety of sources,” DeWine said in a statement.”
The task force’s work is not done and will include other recommendations such as expanding the reach of long-term care resident advocates, increasing the state’s workforce of facility inspectors and expanding technical assistance for nursing homes, according to the Ohio Department of Aging.
@DanaeKing