Report cards and nursing homes

Purpose: We first describe which states have pro-duced nursing home report cards; second, we compare what information is provided in these report cards; third, we identify data sources used to produce the report cards; and, finally, we examine seven factors previously shown to be associated with the usefulness of report-card information and provide several examples from current reporting efforts to illustrate how nursing home report cards could be improved. Design and Methods: We searched the Web sites for each state agency responsible for elder affairs–nursing homes. For those states identified as having a nursing home report card, we further examined the information presented. Results: We identified 19 states as having nursing home repor