Hawaii nursing home staffing ranks second nationally

On Dec. 18, the federal government changed its evaluations of nursing homes to make it easier for families to choose one. The new Nursing Home Compare site is like the system the government uses for rating Medicare health and drug plans.

The new system gives nursing homes from 1 to 5 stars, overall and in each of three areas—performance in the latest three quarterly reports in ten key quality measures, such as the percentage of residents with urinary tract infections; performance in the latest three annual health inspections; and adequacy of both overall staffing and staffing by registered nurses.

The five states with the highest percentages of nursing homes earning five stars for adequate overall staffing are Alaska (91.7 percent), Hawaii (35.7 percent), Wyoming (33.3 percent), Montana (29.8 percent) and Delaware (27.5 percent).