The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has made navigating it’s Hospital Compare and Nursing Home Compare websites even easier with enhanced IT tools and mobile-ready applications.
At a press conference on July 19, CMS announced the redesign, which will allow families to find important information such as data from nursing home inspections and other quality measures more easily.
According to an article on InformationWeek.com, CMS’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer Shari M. Ling, MD said, “Hospital Compare and Nursing Home Compare allow Americans to make side-by-side comparisons of the nursing homes and hospitals in their area on a diverse range of metrics. These can range from specific medical standards, such as how many people are taking the appropriate medications following a surgical procedure, to the levels of patient satisfaction with a facility.”
She pointed out that the Nursing Home Compare website saw 500,000 visits in the first half of 2012. The site includes a new measure that reports data on a nursing home’s use of anti-psychotic drugs, as well as providing information on how many residents report experiencing moderate to severe pain while at the nursing home.
In addition, the site has large, easy-to-use maps for locating facilities, and new search functions that allow users to enter the name of a facility. Glossaries and web resources have been added to make the information easier to comprehend. The site can also be access through mobile devices.
If you need to research a nursing facility for an elderly loved one, visit http://www.medicare.gov/NursingHomeCompare.