New Jersey climbed into the top 10 nursing homes states for the first time, reports Families for Better Care, a national nursing home resident advocacy group based in Austin. The group published its third state-by-state nursing home report card by analyzing eight federal measures to gauge nursing home quality.
Buoyed by improvements in half of the statistical categories, New Jersey’s nursing home ranking climbed to No. 10 overall, up from No. 18 in the previous report.
“While New Jersey should be proud of this year’s ranking, shortcomings in key statistical measures will need to be overcome if the state wants to build on this year’s success,” said Brian Lee, Families for Better Care’s executive director.
According to the report card, a shrinking percentage of nursing homes with severe deficiencies coupled with the state’s repeated superior scores in its ombudsman record buoyed the Garden State into the top 10.
Despite these nursing home triumphs, there is a glaring blemish on the state’s report card.
“New Jersey’s nursing home staffing record is artrocious,” Lee said. “Any state that hires only enough caregivers to average 2 hours and 16 minutes of direct care per resident daily is flirting with disaster, Governor Murphy and New Jersey lawmakers should enact a tough staffing standard to avoid almost certain nursing home quality collapse.”
New Jersey’s 2019 Nursing Home Report Card is available for download at http://www.nursinghomereportcards.com.
ABOUT FAMILIES FOR BETTER CARE
Families for Better Care, Inc. is a non-profit citizen advocacy group dedicated to creating public awareness of the conditions in our nation’s nursing homes and developing solutions for improving quality of life and care. For more information, visit http://familiesforbettercare.com.
