Critical Care: A series of stories looking at nursing homes in Northeast Ohio
State nursing home inspectors give residents a voice - During an Ohio Health Department inspection of a nursing home on the North Side of Youngstown, a resident placed her hand on an inspector’s arm and began to cry.
Family provides home care for mother, puts off nursing home decision - When it became obvious that Helen Horkey could no longer care for herself, her son and daughter-in-law said they had no real choice of what to do.
Pembrooke Place faces fines, lawsuits, other penalties - The U.S. Centers Medicare and Medicaid Services have a special list, one that most nursing homes don’t ever want to be on. 
Nursing homes, administrators escape criminal charges - As an ombudsman for the Area Agency on Aging, John Saulitis sees the best and the worst in northeast Ohio’s nursing facilities.
Death of 84-year-old highlights differences in penalties at senior facilities - The alarms were quiet the morning of April 9 when an 84-year-old resident of Grace Woods Senior Living in Niles walked out of the building and died.
Questions surround beating of 90-year-old at Stow Glen - At 7:30 a.m. Jan. 30, there was a commotion at Stow Glen Health Care Center, a nursing home for about 100 residents on Kent Road in Stow. Forty minutes later, a 90-year-old woman was taken to the hospital with bloody head injuries, a nurse’s aide was fired and police were investigating a case of abuse.
State, federal cuts to nursing homes affect staffing, more - As a child, Sam Berresford visited a former neighbor in a nursing home. “People were yelling, strapped in chairs, and it smelt like urine. It was a scary place,” he said. “I was scared to death.”Nursing Home Ratings
Medicare and the Ohio Department of Health rate nursing homes on staffing, code compliance and satisfaction rates.
Click the link below to see how local nursing homes rate.
Several web sites offer help to people who must choose a nursing home.
Many will offer step-by-step guides, while others offer inspection reports and star ratings.
Medicare Checklist: Print out a checklist and take it with you on visits to nursing homes.
Medicare Comparison: The government site offers star ratings on facilities. Just enter your zip code and compare.
State of Ohio Long-term Care Consumer Guide: Offers information on family satisfaction surveys, resident satisfaction surveys, code inspections and more.
Link to Long-term Care Consumer Guide.
MemberOfTheFamily.net – Offers simplified reports based on government survey. Site has a National Watch List and an Honor Roll detailing bad and the good facilities, a registry of nursing homes and more.
HealthGrades.com – Check the background of your doctor and to see if he has been named in a malpractice suit.
WikiHow.com: Offers tips on specific things to look for during a nursing home tour.
Link to Choose a Really Good Nursing Home
— TheNewsOutlet.org