On November 12, 2002, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) launched a Web page that gives you the opportunity to see how the federal government "grades" Hawaii's, and the nation's, nursing homes. The data is posted on a special section of the CMS web site and will be updated quarterly.

The Nursing Home Quality Initiative (NHQI) also provides for state Quality Improvement Organizations (formerly Peer Review Organizations) to assist nursing homes with improving the quality of their care.

The two organizations that represent all of the nursing homes in Hawaii, The Healthcare Association of Hawaii (HAH), www.hah.org, and The Hawaii Long Term Care Association (HLTCA), www.hltca.org, have joined together to offer you this website, which will assist with your understanding of this project and how you can accurately interpret the data.

How is this important to me and my family
in our nursing home selection?

This initiative signals a new era in quality assurance for nursing homes - an era that will be marked by caregivers, patients, family members, and consumers, working positively and cooperatively to continually improve the quality of care for Hawaii's kupuna and disabled.

When you look up a nursing home in Hawaii, you will find their experiences are consistent with other facilities in Hawaii on some quality measures and differs from the state average on others.

If you have a loved one in a nursing home, we encourage you to call to discuss anything you see on the CMS website that may concern you. We provide a complete listing of all nursing homes in Hawaii along with contact information on this website. Also posted is the information on how to contact the two associations.

Obtaining reliable, accurate information is an essential part of the evaluation of the data to be published. You can increase the usefulness of the data by contacting the specific nursing home to discuss how the facility's unique resident population can affect their ratings.