I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised by this sentence in a recent report by the Federal Government. The sentence reads, “In addition, the most poorly performing homes tended to be chain affiliated and for-profit and have more beds and residents.”  The report, by the General Accounting Office, is a lengthy document about the quality of our nation’s nursing homes. To see it in print – from the federal government – that “chain affiliated and for-profit” nursing homes tend to be the ones offering the poorest care to residents only reaffirms what I have long suspected, and what I have heard from many of you who write to share your personal experiences of loved ones in senior living facilities. Time and time again, I hear that the best care tends to come from a personal connection between caregiver and resident.

And here is another interesting finding – the most poorly performing homes are distributed UNEVENLY across the states, with eight states having no such homes and ten others have from 21 to 52 such homes. Where do you find the 52 worst nursing homes? According to the GAO, that’s in Indiana. Florida has 16 that make the list, a relatively low number considering there are 664 nursing homes in my Florida Senior Living Advisor database. But we don’t do as well as another popular retirement location – Arizona has just 4 homes on the list.

According to GAO’s estimate, of the 16,000 nursing homes in the US, four percent – or 580 – could be considered the most poorly performing. If you want to understand more about the GAO’s research and conclusions, you can read the summary and recommendations, or even review the entire report. But be patient – it is 57 pages long! (The map showing numbers of poorly performing homes in each state is on page 15.)