Website provides long-term care facility information

Information about the performance and features of long-term care (LTC) facilities in California is now at the fingertips of residents of the state and others as part of a revised website from the nonprofit California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF).

CalQualityCare.org allows users to find and compare offerings based on several measures:

• Nursing homes: overall rating, care and facility quality, services offered, staffing levels, payment accepted, and ownership and provider type.
• Assisted living facilities:  care offered, ownership, clients served, ownership and capacity.
• Hospices:  overall rating, specialized services offered, program and ownership type, and payment accepted.
• Home healthcare providers: types of care offered, payment accepted and ownership type.

LTC facility data come from the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. The site also provides tips and checklists about types of long-term care, how to evaluate a facility and resources for independent living.

The website incorporates information from a hospital-related site formerly offered by CHCF, CalHospitalCompare.org, and now also provides information about medical groups and care for the developmentally disabled. Users are not required to register or provide any contact information.

“The fact is, healthcare quality can vary dramatically from provider to provider,” says Andy Krackov, senior program officer at CHCF. “When it comes to choosing a medical group, hospital or long-term care provider, better information makes for smarter choices.”

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Lois Bowers

Lois A. Bowers was senior editor of I Advance Senior Care / Long-Term Living from 2013-2015.