The identical measures would require nursing homes and any related business entities operating in New Jersey to file consolidated financial statements to be audited at their own expense.

The laws are aimed at curbing a method some industry critics say nursing home owners have used to hide their profits. In related party transactions, nursing home owners may pay well above market rate for rent and management services to third-party companies that are also owned by the same person or group. That makes it hard for state and federal officials to determine owners’ true operating costs. 

Not all agree that these requirements are necessary. Nursing homes already disclose related party transactions and related financial details and have done so for years, according to Andrew Aronson, president and CEO of the Health Care Association of New Jersey.

Consumer advocates cheered the bills on Thursday. Sam Brooks, ​​director of public policy for The National Consumer Voice for Quality Long Term Care, said the long-term care sector would ultimately benefit from states stepping up to fill a gap in transparency. 

“The industry should welcome these reforms,” Brooks told McKnight’s Long-Term Care News. “Just this year, MACPAC issued a report stating that the use of related parties made determining the actual care costs impossible. Increased transparency and accountability could help facilities allegedly struggling to cover costs demonstrate the need for increased funding.”

Brooks emphasized the need for financial accountability, citing a New York Times article that claimed up to 70% of for-profit nursing homes were funneling money through private companies in 2017, leaving $11 billion dollars beyond public scrutiny.

Clarifying finances for policymakers

The bills’ advocates in New Jersey are pushing for a vote in both the state Senate and Assembly by the end of the current legislative session on Jan. 8, according to Laurie Facciarossa-Brewer, New Jersey’s long-term care ombudsman.

“Advocates and regulators need consolidated financial statements to properly evaluate nursing home operations and foster quality care and better conditions for the residents,” Facciarossa-Brewer wrote in an article for northjersey.com. “The current disclosure requirements make it too easy for nursing homes to hide profits and resist calls to improve conditions. We see this clearly when it comes to staffing rules.”

The identical bills would require that new nursing home owners in New Jersey submit applications to the state Department of Health — including, among other details, a list of all parties assuming ownership, an organizational chart disclosing any related entities under the same parties and a consolidated financial statement with a projection of profits or losses for the next three years.

Transparency at a high cost

Without objecting to greater transparency in principle, association leaders in the state sounded the alarm over the additional regulatory burden the requirements could place on providers.

“The issue that we have with the bills is they require audited financial statements,” Aronson told McKnight’s. “The audits would add significant costs to the facilities. They’re very expensive.” 

Aronson cast doubt that the new requirements would provide meaningful information that the government doesn’t already have access to through cost reports. He also projected the costs of audits to be over $100,000 per building, per year when factoring in all involved parties.

“We think that cost is excessive to require information frankly that the state already has,” Aronson said. 

Jim McCracken, president and CEO of LeadingAge New Jersey & Delaware, expressed similar hesitation.

“Nonprofit nursing homes file 990s, so there is financial transparency regarding their operations,” McCracken told McKnight’s. “The bill … would create duplication and result in increased administrative costs for nonprofits. If the proposed bill becomes law, administrative costs would increase, diverting resources that would otherwise be available to improve patient care.”

Advocates, on the other hand, claim the bills are necessary to provide clarity on nursing home finances in the state. They could impact how New Jersey’s facilities are regulated for staffing and how they are reimbursed for the care they provide, according to Facciarossa-Brewer.

A proposed staffing rule from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services would raise minimum requirements for facilities across the country. Opponents say most nursing homes do not meet those requirements, are already struggling financially and would be heavily burdened by extra operational costs without corresponding reimbursement adjustments to cover losses.

Meanwhile, some advocates for the proposed staffing rule argue that it does not go far enough in regulating care quality. 

Facciarossa-Brewer asserted that these transparency bills would allow lawmakers to see the full picture of nursing homes’ financial status and, therefore, make more informed decisions about regulations and how to allocate government resources.

“Nursing home owners and their lobbyists argue that many cannot afford to recruit and retain additional staff,” Facciarossa-Brewer said. “Greater financial transparency would go a long way toward proving — or disproving — those claims.”

Policymakers and consumer advocates are beginning to push for similar transparency measures across the country, including recently in California, according to Aronson.

This article has been updated to add clarifying language and also correct a misstatement to properly note that providers would have to pay for the new audits.

The situation at Limecrest Subacute and Rehabilitation Center, a 159-bed facility in Northern New Jersey, demonstrates just how dangerous COVID still is for vulnerable seniors and other patients who call skilled nursing facilities home.

Since September, 66 staff members and residents have been sickened by the virus, with seven residents dying, New Jersey health officials said last week.

That news and an order to restrict admissions and bring in additional nursing and infection control oversight at Limecrest came as vaccination coverage at nursing homes across the US has fallen to a dangerous low.

Providers have been struggling this fall to get their hands on enough vaccines to cover residents and to offer updated shots for healthcare workers, who are no longer obligated under a vaccination requirement. In some facilities, providers have described having to prioritize some residents over others.

Nationally, just 25% of nursing home residents are considered up-to-date on their COVID shots, meaning they have received all recommended doses of COVID-19 vaccine for which they are eligible. Staff coverage, meanwhile, has fallen to just 6% of all workers nationwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the week ending Nov. 19..

The news among residents in New Jersey is slightly better, with some 37% up-to-date, as reported by the CDC.

Vaccine hesitancy “continues to be a concern and a barrier,” James W. McCracken, president & CEO of LeadingAge NJ & DE told McKnight’s Long-Term Care News Monday afternoon.

“Many people are suspect of getting additional vaccinations. This is not specific to long-term care,” he said. “I have heard of some limited supply issues, but they get resolved. Our pharmacy partners have done a fantastic job. The NJ Department of Health has regular meetings with the associations representing long-term care providers and has focused on educating the industry and community on the advantages of getting vaccinated.”

Still, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services data, which lags the CDC information by several weeks, casts a pall over any vaccination efforts at Limecrest. According to Care Compare, no residents at the facility are up-to-date, though 30.7% of residents statewide were by Oct. 29.

Information on the facility’s status and any additional cases or deaths was not available Monday. The state health department did not respond to a McKnight’s request for additional details, and a message left for Limecrest Administrator Sonia Velmonte was not returned by deadline. 

According to CMS records, Velmonte has been managing the facility since 2017.  It previously operated as O’Brien Place at the same address and was part of the Woodland Behavioral and Nursing Center at Andover.

The buildings were renamed after an early 2020 COVID outbreak that left bodies piled up in a makeshift morgue and led to allegations of chronic understaffing. Eventually, 83 residents died in that first outbreak.

The larger building, which at the time was the state’s largest provider of Medicaid nursing beds, closed as it faced CMS-decertification in 2022. 

A health department spokeswoman last week told NJ Advance Media that state officials are requiring Limecrest to hire a consultant to manage the facility and bring in other professionals to monitor and direct nursing and infection control practices before any additional residents can be admitted.

NJ Advance also reported that Limecrest’s owners are “in negotiations” to sell the facility, which has a 4-star overall rating.

The Department of Justice Civil Rights Division and the US Attorney’s Office District of New Jersey issued a joint report Thursday with findings of their investigation into the Veterans Memorial Homes at Menlo Park and Paramus. The 40-page report details “those early days [of COVID] and how the initial chaos decreased but did not end,” eventually leading to a conclusion that the facilities violated residents’ 14^thAmendment rights. 

“Even by the standards of the pandemic’s difficult early days, the facilities were unprepared to keep their residents safe,” the agencies concluded. “A systemic inability to implement clinical care policy, poor communication between management and staff and a failure to ensure basic staff competency let the virus spread virtually unchecked throughout the facilities.”

While the investigation and report primarily focus on widespread failures to keep residents and staff safe during the pandemic and the facilities’ failures to report correctly the number of COVID cases and deaths, the agencies also described dangers to residents through inadequate wound and pressure ulcer care, and failures of basic care, including fall prevention protocols.

Officials’ findings read like a “how not to” manual for skilled nursing operators.

The report describes a pervasive lack of communication between the facilities’ leadership and staffs, which led to an environment in which neither trusted the other.

A non-clinical staff member at the Menlo Park facility told investigators of a situation in which a resident with a high fever was “screaming and ripping out his oxygen tube.”

“When she reported the incident to another nurse on the unit, the nurse responded that she should mind her own business because the nurse was finishing her shift,” the report said. 

In another incident at Menlo Park, investigators from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services “observed a serious failure to ensure nursing competency.” The investigators learned that a registered nurse who had never removed a catheter improperly used scissors to cut the device, “causing the remaining catheter to retract into the bladder and sending the resident to the hospital.” The nursing staff also failed to read the hospital’s directions and did not administer the prescribed antibiotics for 15 days, resulting in the resident undergoing extended antibiotic treatment for additional infections, including MRSA.

Infection control, cleaning severely lacking

The Department of Justice notified the New Jersey Department of Justice on Oct. 27, 2020, that it would be opening an investigation into the two facilities under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act. Infection control and long-term care medical experts assisted with the investigation.

What they found were environments that continually exposed residents and staff to significant harm. The report noted that the homes had the first- and fourth-highest numbers of publicly-reported COVID deaths, but “the actual number of COVID deaths was likely much higher.”

“Due to limited testing and a failure to systemically track probable COVID deaths, it is impossible to determine the exact number of Veterans Homes residents who died of COVID during the pandemic’s first wave in 2020,” the investigators said. “But it is clear that the number of deaths during COVID’s early months was substantially higher than the numbers publicly disclosed, and substantially higher than at other facilities.”

Although the New Jersey Department of Health ordered universal masking for all nursing home staff on March 30, 2020, neither facility “successfully implemented that policy,” the report noted. US Veterans Affairs employees saw staff members at both homes either not wearing or wearing masks incorrectly, not changing PPE when moving between resident rooms, entering COVID-positive rooms without gowns, and delivering food without wearing masks and gloves. 

Days after a directive went out about hand washing, there remained “broad deficiencies in handwashing” at both facilities, according to the report. Housekeeping staff at Paramus were also not properly trained on how to disinfect resident areas, including the “terminal cleaning” of rooms from which COVID-positive residents were discharged or transferred. 

“In Menlo Park, the nursing stations were dirty and there was no cleaning of common areas; one U.S. Veterans Affairs staffer reported ‘ants/bugs everywhere,’” the report noted. 

Fear of retribution

The report also outlines staff members’ “inadequate” cooperation from both state and facility officials with the federal investigation along with “widespread dissatisfaction and low morale among the staff.” Employees said that complaints about resident care, poor communication between leadership, supervisors and employees, and “inadequate mental health support” were ignored. 

Staff attorneys and facility management tracked the movements of federal investigators as they moved through the homes, the report said. They interrupted witness interviews, asked witnesses afterward what was discussed, and directed staffers not to speak with investigators. Following the first site visit to Paramus, the CEO and at least one supervisor told department heads and staff that, “DOJ can shut us down, staff should be mindful of what they say.” Staffers reported being fearful of retaliatory actions if they spoke with investigators, the report noted. 

The report also stated the federal subpoenas were “delayed, incomplete, contained numerous wholly non-responsive documents, and regularly consisted of thousands of documents with little to no organization and in no discernible order.” 

“Resident medical records were particularly disorganized, with documents regularly out of order. Some charts contained records related to other residents. These production problems caused substantial delays and impeded the Department’s ability to effectively and expeditiously investigate potential CRIPA violations,” the report said. 

The Attorney General for New Jersey has 49 days after issuing the report to file a lawsuit under the Civil Rights Act if the problems raised in the report are not “satisfactorily addressed,” the report said.

Federal officials halted new admissions at the New Jersey Veterans Memorial Home at Menlo Park in November after a lengthy inspection in the summer found that residents were in “immediate jeopardy of both a life-threatening illness and potential abuse.” The facility already had one of the highest rates of deaths from COVID-19 in the country.  

In January 2022, McKnights Long Term Care News reported on a $52.9 million settlement between the state and the families of 119 residents over how the facility managed the COVID-19 outbreak in the early days of the pandemic. The facility is run by the New Jersey Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. 

A lengthy inspection last summer from the state Department of Health resulted in a 293-page report that used the word “abuse” 77 times and cited numerous violations of nursing home standards, according to state media reports.

“The facility’s system wide failure to immediately conduct COVID-19 testing upon the identification of a single new case of COVID-19 posed a serious and immediate risk to the health and well-being of all staff and residents who resided at the facility and who were placed at risk for contracting a contagious and potentially deadly virus,” the report stated.

A subsequent survey conducted on Jan. 23, however, found that enough improvements had been implemented to put the veterans home in “substantial compliance” with federal standards to resume new admissions, according to northjersey.com. CMS had threatened to shut off federal funds on March 8 if improvements weren’t made. The facility updated “infection control processes, testing protocols, and contact tracing” and increased staff competency evaluations, and the frequency of rounds to ensure proper infection controls, according to a statement from the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. 

Halting admissions is just one option available to federal or state regulators if numerous or significant deficiencies are found.

McKnight’s inquiries to facility leaders about steps taken to improve compliance were not answered Wednesday.

Consultants have been hired to work in the facility and file reports on progress made toward compliance, according to a close sector observer who declined to be named. 

“Those reports must be positive enough and there must be enough documented improvement in new policies, staff training, staff oversight, etc. to make CMS comfortable enough to lift the ban on admissions,” the individual told McKnight’s, cautioning that there might still be some restrictions in place, such as limiting the number of daily admissions or having admissions reviewed by regulatory agencies.

State Sen. Joseph Vitale (D-District 19) introduced the bill in response to a spate of local media reports about nursing home residents losing savings, pensions, even vehicles and other possessions after signing over control of their financial assets to a third-party fiscal agent for the facilities. The reports were based on an investigation by NJ Advance Media as it delved into court documents and conducted interviews about the Brooklyn, NY-based company Future Care Consultants and its CEO, Shmuel “Sam” Stern.

Vitale’s legislation would prohibit anyone employed by or connected to a nursing home from manage the financial affairs of residents unless appointed as a guardian through a Superior Court order. Vitale is chair of the New Jersey Senate’s Committee on Health, Human Services, and Senior Citizens. 

Companion legislation has been introduced in the state Assembly. Both bills (S-3606 and A-5194) also prevent nursing home owners or employees from acting as power of attorney for residents. 

“There has to be some sort of mechanism so that when somebody needs help, we’re not going to drain their bank accounts,” Vitale said, according to NJ.com. 

But the head of the Health Care Association of New Jersey said the legislation is shortsighted and would harm residents who lack the resources to hire attorneys to file the necessary court documents. Association President and CEO Andy Aronson called the current system a “lifeline to tens of thousands of needy” residents at no cost to them. 

“This wrong-headed bill would primarily benefit attorneys, at the expense of this most vulnerable population,” Aronson said in a statement to McKnights Long Term Care News on Tuesday. “The Legislature’s efforts should be spent easing access to care, rather than on making that access more expensive.”

According to its website, Future Care Consultants provides financial and accounting services to nursing homes, handling “pesky paperwork” and collecting outstanding debts along with other services so that facilities can focus on patient care. That work involves collecting residents’ Medicaid and Medicare checks as well. Court documents and victims’ attorneys, however, say that the firm “has sought at times to take control of the savings, the assets, and ultimately the lives of nursing home residents, ostensibly to pay off the debt for their care.”

The articles from NJ.com detail a number of stories about people either admitted to nursing homes for short-term, rehabilitation stays or long-term residences who signed over control of their finances while heavily medicated or without proof of being mentally sound. One woman returned home after a rehabilitation stay at a facility in Hazlet only to find that her house was “emptied of all its possessions,” preparations were being made to sell the home, and her car titled had been signed over to the financial agent. 

An email seeking comment from Future Care Consultants was not returned Tuesday. There is no phone number listed on the company’s website. A call to Stern’s attorney, Richard Kozel, was not returned.

A New Jersey company pressured nursing home staff to refer ineligible patients to hospice care, exaggerating their conditions and defrauding the government in the process, a federal whistleblower lawsuit alleges. 

Sherri McDermott of Paramus, NJ, a nurse who worked for hospice company Life Source Services for several months in 2017, claims she was fired after she pushed back against changing medical records needed to claim Medicare and Medicaid coverage.

The lawsuit, originally filed in US District Court in New Jersey in 2019, was quietly unsealed in 2021 after the federal government declined to intervene. It gained renewed attention late last year as a pharmacy dragged into the case sought to be dropped as a defendant.

Though the suit outlines alleged behavior that took place in nursing homes, Life Source, its affiliates and the pharmacy are the only defendants. The company provides hospice services in nursing homes and inpatient facilities and also provides at-home hospice care, according to court documents reviewed by McKnight’s Long-Term Care News.

Rob Hennig, an attorney representing the plaintiff, told NorthJersey.com that Life Source’s hospice referrals ensured patients received unnecessary services.

“They were using people’s family members as profit centers,” Hennig said. “That’s just simply unacceptable.”

The case is unfolding as hospice providers nationally, especially for-profit firms, are under attack for allegedly using quotas and other unscrupulous business methods. For-profit firms now make up 70% of the hospice market.

New Jersey has seen a 20% increase in the number of licensed hospice providers over the past five years, to 119, according to the health department statistics reported by NewJersey.com.

But New Jersey’s long-term care ombudsman Laurie Facciarossa Brewer told the news outlet she believes hospice remains generally underused in nursing homes.

“We don’t see cases where patients are on hospice that don’t need to be,” she said. 

McDermott alleges that in her case, Life Source’s clinical coordinator told her to describe alert patients as “lethargic” or “comatose;” that the hospice executive director or other staff changed her chart entries and deleted other records; and that Life Source rewarded nursing homes for referrals with luaus and barbecues for staff, by providing extra equipment and allowing hospice staff to cover routine healthcare needs.

McDermott’s attorneys have subpoenaed records from six New Jersey nursing homes to try to gather more evidence reflecting a broader time period, though those records have not been supplied yet. The affected facilities include the Jewish Home at Rockleigh, Juniper Village of Paramus, Christian Healthcare Center in Wyckoff, the New Jersey Veterans Home at Paramus, Emerson Nursing Home and Dellridge Rehab and Health Care Center.

A spokeswoman for Juniper Communities told McKnight’s the matter “potentially involves a former operator of a community in Paramus, NJ, and consequently Juniper has no comment or information at this time.” None of the other nursing homes contacted by McKnight’s about the case Wednesday responded to requests for comment.

In court filings, an attorney representing Life Source and its executives denied McDermott’s allegations and said she wasn’t fired but quit.

Nursing home operators have wrestled more than other healthcare providers with nursing shortages and the rise of agency nurse use since the onset of the pandemic.

“We’ve only seen this kind of work structure grow and the pandemic has been a contributing factor to that, especially in healthcare where we’re seeing massive growth in temp staffing agencies,” Roberto Clack, executive director of Temp Worker Justice, told Bloomberg Law. “There’s a real need for the labor movement to do more about this and pass more legislation around the country.”

The bill also would open temp agencies and providers to the same lawsuits for workplace violations from temp workers as their full time staff counterparts can initiate.

The bill’s passage is not a foregone conclusion even though New Jersey has been a state friendly to workers, with laws providing high minimum wage, paid sick days, and paid family leave. The bill’s opponents, which include lobbyists like the American Staffing Association and New Jersey Business and Industry Association, say temp workers are well protected already and that the bill would make their use much more expensive.

Democrats in the US House pushed a bill covering equal pay for temp workers in 2020 but it failed to advance. There are temp worker protection laws in states like Washington, Illinois, Massachusetts, and California but those have dealt primarily with information and safety. Most focus on blue-collar workers, but the need for the protections for white collar workers is rising.

“I haven’t seen a huge cry to protect professionals, clerical administrative folks, IT professionals,” Toby Malara, vice president of government relations for the American Staffing Association told Bloomberg Law. “If that increases over time, we’ll certainly sit down with folks to talk about something that addresses those concerns.”

The bill could be voted on Dec. 22 by the state senate. It passed once, but Gov. Phil Murphy (D) vetoed the bill in September, asking for a different version. The state Assembly passed through the revised bill but the Senate has postponed a vote twice because it didn’t have enough votes to pass.

“It’s not a slam dunk,” said Lou Kimmel, executive director of New Labor, a New Jersey workers rights organization.

As of last Wednesday (Nov. 16), non-governmental healthcare entities must offer eligible workers continued employment for at least four months following a change in control without any reduction in their wages and benefits. That includes paid time off, healthcare, retirement, and education benefits.

The Health Care Association of New Jersey and LeadingAge New Jersey & Delaware opposed Senate Bill 315.

“This law imposes unprecedented restrictions on the sale or transfer of healthcare facilities …,” Kathy Fiery, vice president of assisted living for the HCANJ told McKnight’s Tuesday.

“We opposed the law because it restricts a purchaser’s normal managerial discretion that may be needed to remedy poor financial conditions that may have necessitated the sale.  Without that discretion, a potential buyer may choose to not purchase a facility, making it more likely that financially troubled facilities will close. In the end, this may result in patients losing access to care and workers unnecessarily losing jobs.”

After a change in control, the new ownership group has to offer employment to eligible employees in writing and stay open for at least 10 business days from the date of the offer. If at the time of the change, or during the transition period, the number of jobs is fewer than the number of eligible workers, seniority and experience must form the basis of continued employment decisions.

New-owner obligations

Those workers who stay on for the transition period can be let go only for cause or as a part of downsizing. After the four months, the new owner has to give each retained-eligible employee a written performance evaluation and offer continued employment if their evaluation merits. The new owner also has to maintain each offer of employment and performance evaluation for at least three years from the date of the offer or the evaluation.

A main sticking point is the implication that open-ended employment would be mandated in most cases after the four-month post-sale period, said Meagan Glaser, vice president of LeadingAge New Jersey & Delaware. 

“It is our understanding that as currently written, the requirements related to retaining or rehiring existing staff would not be limited to a transition period, but instead would require their retention or rehiring indefinitely if cause does not exist or if a reduction in workforce is not warranted,” she told McKnight’s. 

“This sets a dangerous precedent for future private transactions in other industries as well. This policy change already occurred in the hotel industry during the lame-duck session. We are also not aware of any other state that has laws placing restrictions on the sale of a private or non-profit entity.”

The law allows for a private right of action for employees affected by violations of its language. They could be awarded with immediate reinstatement and if the issue is unpaid wages, could win 200% liquidated damages.

New Jersey launched its consumer-oriented dashboard Nov. 9, touting its facility-level information as a resource for prospective residents and families. Despite the extra layer of scrutiny and opportunity for judgments based on outdated information, some observers say the additional information could actually help skilled nursing providers, researchers and government officials.

But providers must keep on top of the added data points to ensure they are ready to respond, warned Jessie McGill, RN, curriculum development specialist for the American Association of Post Acute Care Nursing told McKnight’s Long-Term Care on Monday.

For example, knowing a facility improved on a certain metric after a dashboard was last updated could help staff prepare for prospective client questions. McGill pointed to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Care Compare tool, which state dashboards typically mirror.

“So, right now the MDS 3.0 Quality Measures reports data from July 1, 2021, through June 30, 2022,” McGill explained. “This data would not reflect any improvement efforts the facility has made since July. Facility staff need to be aware of the data that is publicly reported on the Care Compare dashboard, as well as real-time data and be prepared to speak to consumers and possible referrals regarding both sets of data.”

The ideal dashboard would have real-time data, Stephen Hanse, president and CEO of the New York State Health Facilities Association/New York State Center for Assisted Living, told McKnight’s.

“They’re imperfect because the data is imperfect,” he said “If you’re trying to evaluate a nursing home you really need a real-time look. It’s helpful but it’s only a partial picture.”

Can’t get no satisfaction

One of the failings of such dashboards is that they show a lot of information that is easily gathered but not as valuable as other information that’s harder to count, geriatrician and chairman of the public policy at the California Association of Long Term Care Medicine Michael Wasserman told McKnight’s. 

“They miss a key element, which is customer satisfaction, resident satisfaction, family satisfaction,” Wasserman said. “It’s one of the challenges we face in the field, assessing things like quality of life. We don’t have any great measures, so they go through measures they can quantify. Are there pressure ulcers, things like that.

“Those metrics all have their limitations. Speaking as a clinician, as a geriatrician, I think our ultimate goal is trying to develop some metrics that are more person-centric.”

Ombudsmen value the same type of information, Chris Fisher, vice president of operations and quality Initiatives at the Pennsylvania Health Care Association, told McKnight’s.

Fisher said he’s not concerned about the redundancy that state dashboards create.

“Individual states can make the data more manageable by leveraging all that’s relative to that state in one location, such as a dashboard,” he said. “It’s possible competing data locations with the same information could create some confusion, but the intent is for increased transparency.”

He added that it is important for any group leveraging data about nursing homes “to maintain responsibility and integrity with it, whether they are sourcing the data or collecting it on their own.”

Helping investments

In New Jersey, the dashboard will empower Gov. Phil Murphy’s (D) administration “to engage in increased monitoring of nursing homes for the maintenance of key quality of care standards and also streamlines access to help inform the public’s decisions when selecting a nursing home,” according to a release announcing the dashboard’s launch.

“The dashboard will also equip businesses and organizations with state and facility-level information that may aid investments, improvements, and advocacy decisions.”

For each of the state’s 356 nursing homes, New Jersey’s searchable dashboard includes information such as:

• Facility Five-Star Quality Ratings from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services 
• Survey and inspection information
• Links to certified financial statements and cost reports
• General staffing levels and compliance to staffing ratios
• Names of owners and licensed nursing home administrators