OHIO — The state has launched a new database for users to find information regarding nursing homes across Ohio, as announced by Gov. Mike DeWine and Ursel McElroy, the Ohio Department of Aging director, in a press release Wednesday.

The Ohio Nursing Home Navigator is accessible via the Ohio Department of Aging website and came at the recommendation of the Governor’s Nursing Home Quality & Accountability Task Force.

Users will be able to see “care quality metrics, facility comparison functionality,…staffing ratios, specialty services offered and the number of health and safety violations a nursing home received.”

In the release, DeWine said the task force went to nursing homes across the state, listening to caregivers and residents and their families.

“Time and again, these people told us that the information they needed to make one of the most important decisions of their lives – where to live and receive care – was scattered across a variety of sources,” DeWine said in the release. “We heard loud and clear that Ohioans making these decisions want an accessible, trusted, single source of information about nursing homes available at their fingertips. Our new online Navigator will accomplish just that, providing an unprecedented level of transparency about the quality of Ohio’s nursing homes so people can make informed choices.”

Navigator users can search by zip code or city, pulling up a map and list of nursing homes in that general area, each labeled with an overall ranking. You can also search the database by name, if you already know which nursing home you’re looking for.

The navigator was developed by InnovateOhio, with support from the Ohio Department of Health and Ohio Department of Medicaid, according to the release. It notes that creating this dashboard was one step of the task force’s Recommendations Report that was given to DeWine in May last year.

“In creating our Task Force, Governor DeWine took a bold and timely step toward our goal of making excellence the expectation for residents of every Ohio nursing home,” McElroy said in the release. “It is our hope that, in addition to providing increased transparency and convenience to Ohioans, the new online Navigator will also incentivize nursing homes to continue reaching higher to deliver the very best quality of care and quality of life possible to the benefit of our state’s nursing home residents and those who love and care for them.”

The release concludes, noting that the task force will continue working on recommendations from the report including “increasing the reach of long-term care resident advocates, bolstering the state’s workforce of facility inspectors, and expanding technical assistance for nursing homes.”