I was really excited to learn about a new web tool for families seeking information about a particular nursing home. Created by ProPublica, Nursing Home Inspect, is essentially a searchable database of information collected from nursing home inspection data.

The free, user-friendly database allows families to access information from nursing home surveys much easier than was possible in the past— where families would literally have to scan through tedious inspection data to find specific information that they were interested in.

While Medicare’s Nursing Home Compare was a great concept when it was released years ago, the information is still relatively general and is only a starting point for families to begin the process of learning about or selecting a facility for a loved one. Unlike the general ‘star-rating system’ that Medicare uses to rate facilities, the new database skips generic ratings in favor of more detailed information.

Now families can quickly search through facilities prior violations as well as any other issues that may be of concern to them using plain language search, similar to Google. Simply by typing in a term such as:

Bed sores
Pressure sores
Falls
Fractures
Wandering
Sexual abuse

Families can readily access the facilities complete history and make their own decisions if the facility is indeed an appropriate choice for their loved one.