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North Carolina ranks among the 11 states with the lowest-quality nursing homes, according to a report issued Thursday by the Kaiser Family Foundation. ... Of the 416 nursing homes in North Carolina, 41 percent have a low quality score of 1 or 2 on a 5-point system. In neighboring South Carolina, only 32 percent got scores of 2 or lower, while in Virginia it was 36 percent. (Murawski, 5/14)

Ohio is one of 11 states where at least 40 percent of nursing homes have low ratings under the federal government’s recently revamped five-star system, according to a new study. ... But the federal rating system is flawed, said Peter Van Runkle, executive director of the Ohio Health Care Association, a trade-industry group. The problem, he said, is that the system boils down the quality of nursing homes to a handful of measures “when what matters will be different for every person.” One of Ohio’s biggest struggles is low-staffing levels. (Pyle, 5/14)

South Carolina’s nursing homes are more likely to get high rankings from the federal star system than those in North Carolina or nationwide, according to a new analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation. The foundation looked at quality ratings for more than 15,500 nursing homes certified by Medicaid and/or Medicare, including 416 in North Carolina and 188 in South Carolina. The federal government issues five-star quality ratings (look up individual homes here). The ratings are based on state health inspections, staffing and other quality measures. (Doss Helms, 5/15)

As a tough nursing home licensing bill moved through the Legislature in Austin, elder care officials and advocates for the elderly expressed concern Thursday after a new analysis of federal data showed that Texas has the largest share of low-rated nursing homes in the nation. Fifty-one percent of the state's 1,193 nursing homes that receive Medicare or Medicaid earned only one or two stars out of a five-star rating system, the Kaiser Family Foundation found when looking at the Nursing Home Compare database compiled by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The study was released Thursday. (Deam, 5/14)

The problem of homeless patient dumping— or failing to make continued care arrangements when a patient is well enough to leave the hospital but too ill to return to the streets— is only fueling Southern California’s homeless problem, argue advocates familiar with the issue. (Cartensen, 5/14)