1 Purpose of the Study: Two consumer-derived

measures of nursing home quality that have been underutilized by researchers are consumer complaints to the state certification agency between inspections and complaints to the Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program. This article describes these complaints, con-siders facility-level predictors of complaints, and exam-ines how complaints to the 2 entities are related. Design and Methods: This article uses North Carolina complaint data from the state certifica-tion agency and Ombudsman from 2002 to 2006. First, we outline the similarities and differences in the 2 complaint sources by considering descriptive statis-tics and examining the structure of the 2 agencies. Second, we examine the relationship between com-plaints and facility characteristics that have been pre-dictive of traditional quality measures. Finally, we examine the relationships between the 2 types of com-plaints. Results: We find that complaints to the 2 agencies exhibit distinct differences in substantiation rates, although the top complaint category for both agencies is quality of care. Having a higher propor-tion of Medicaid residents is generally not predictive of complaint volume, whereas having a higher pro-portion of Medicare residents is associated with higher complaint levels. Implications: We find a lack of association between complaints to the 2 agencies when examining specific matched categories of com-plaints in many cases, suggesting that the 2 entities are not duplicating efforts in these categories