Nursing Home Selection: How Do Consumers Choose?

The aging of the population points to the increasing need for useful and reliable information resources available to consumers about their health and social care options, including nursing homes. There are numerous resources available to the public to support the decision-making process through federal and state governments as well as private sources. However, there is some skepticism both about the ability of elders and their families to understand and translate that information into a decision, and about whether the information available is relevant to the decision-making process. While these resources are widely available through the Internet, phone, and in print, there is little information about if and how they are used to support the decision-making process. This report presents a review of a subset of the Internet sites that may be used to inform a consumer’s selection of a nursing facility. As part of this content review, the reviewed 29 websites. Thirteen websites were national in scope and sixteen were state specific.