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Ohio unveils tool to help public choose nursing facilities

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — A new tool and several new ideas to help ensure nursing homes are safe and Ohioans are informed are all underway.

“Reimagining of what is possible in nursing homes is really essential, I believe,” Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said.


On Wednesday afternoon, DeWine, alongside Director of the Department of Aging Ursel McElroy, introduced a new website to help Ohioans make informed decisions about nursing homes.

They said it is a first-of-its-kind site, designed to allow Ohioans to search for a nursing home based on benchmarks like distance, staffing, and the number of health/safety violations, and filter out facilities for incidents like cases of abuse.

“It allows users to select multiple nursing homes and then get a side-by-side comparison,” DeWine said.

The site is called the nursing home quality navigator and was designed after a year of traveling across the state, talking to nursing homes and Ohioans.

McElroy said the tool is both approachable and powerful, created with real people in mind.

“Ohio caregivers who are faced every day with making life-changing decisions, often with a short timeframe to do it,” she said. “We are changing the conversation around nursing home selection process. We see the navigator as a victory for every Ohioan.”

McElroy said while the site is currently live, it is still a work in progress. She said they hope to have tools, for example, to help Ohioans filter for nursing homes that take care of dementia patients or wound care, within the next few months.

DeWine said while the site was made to help Ohioans, it might also help with accountability.

“The more information out there, the more that’s in the market, the more incentive there is going to be for a nursing home to improve the quality of care,” he said.

But he said overall, the work to improve nursing homes is “far from over.” He said Ohio is “leading the nation” in emphasizing quality.

Nursing homes received significant funding from the state’s budget last year. This year, DeWine said they are increasing the number of state inspectors to evaluate facilities, increasing the number of resident advocates in nursing homes to empower residents, and the state is paying nursing homes more when they take better care of residents.

“Our goal is to improve the quality of care and quality of life for nursing home residents,” DeWine said. “We are working to make excellence the expectation for every nursing home in the state of Ohio.”