U.S. News & World Report released its 2018-19 Best Nursing Home rankings Oct. 30.
Here are five things to know:
1. To compile the list, S. News assessed more than 15,000 nursing homes nationwide using data from CMS' Nursing Home Compare and ranked each facility on a scale of one to five, with one indicating a "poor" performance and five meaning "top performing."
2. This year, 2,975 nursing homes received a "Best Nursing Home" designation from U.S. News, compared to nearly 2,300 nursing homes in 2017-18.
3. U.S. News updated its overall ratings methodology to emphasize nursing home staffing quality.
4. The publication also introduced a short-stay rehabilitation rating as part of its analysis this year, which reflects nursing homes' care quality for short-stay patients who require intensive rehabilitation or nursing services. Of about 13,000 nursing homes evaluated on this metric, 2,042 earned a high-performing rating from U.S. News.
5. U.S. News released its updated Nursing Home Finder tool to coincide with the nursing home ratings, which offers information on patient safety, care quality and staffing, among other factors, for every nursing home in the U.S.
To view this year's winners by state, click here.