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Utah Value:
Percentage of certified nursing home beds rated four or five stars over a three-month period
Utah Rank:
Percentage of certified nursing home beds rated four or five stars over a three-month period
49.1% - 40.8%
40.7% - 37.1%
37.0% - 33.4%
33.3% - 27.7%
27.6% - 18.4%
US Value: 34.0%
Top State(s): North Dakota: 49.1%
Bottom State(s): Louisiana: 18.6%
Definition: Percentage of certified nursing home beds rated four or five stars over a three-month period
Data Source and Years(s): U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Care Compare Nursing Home Five-Star Quality Rating System, 9/2025-11/2025
Suggested Citation: America's Health Rankings analysis of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Care Compare Nursing Home Five-Star Quality Rating System, United Health Foundation, AmericasHealthRankings.org, accessed 2026.
Older adults usually move to a nursing home when they develop cognitive, mental or functional impairments that make it difficult to complete day-to-day tasks. A landmark study published by the Institute of Medicine in the late 1980s cited the urgent need for better regulatory standards in nursing homes to accommodate a growing older adult population. Between 2011 and 2019, the per-capita availability of nursing home beds dropped by more than 20%, driven in large part by the growing older adult population. In 2025, the number of people living in nursing homes across the U.S. grew to 1.2 million, while the number of nursing home facilities dropped to less than 15,000.
Nursing home quality varies across the United States, impacted by differences in ownership, staffing stability, staff training and environment. Residents of lower-quality nursing homes are more likely to experience depression.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) uses the Five-Star Quality Rating System to evaluate nursing homes based on health inspections, quality of resident care and overall staffing. More stars indicate the nursing home is rated higher in quality. The public ratings, available via the Care Compare tool, are intended to encourage nursing homes to achieve higher quality.
Nursing homes with higher ratings include:
One study found that nursing homes with three or fewer stars were concentrated in Ssouthern states. Moreover, the quality of nursing home care is lower in areas with a high concentration of racial and ethnic minorities.
The Five-Star Quality Rating System can help individuals and families select the right nursing home for themselves and their loved ones. Information is available from the Care Compare tool, which combines its eight provider comparison metrics into a single interface. CMS also authored a guide to finding and comparing nursing homes and other long-term care services, which includes a checklist individuals can use to evaluate the quality of a nursing home during a visit.
CMS is constantly improving its standards for nursing home quality. In 2019, CMS announced a new component for reporting elder abuse and removed pain quality measures from its model to avoid the possibility of incentivizing overprescription of opioids. Other practices, such as fall management and risk prevention, may also help with nursing home quality.
While overall nursing home quality has been improving, there has been concern regarding the reliability of using self-reported data for nursing home ratings. The Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation (IMPACT) Act of 2014 now mandates and standardizes reporting from nursing, rehabilitation and long-term care facilities to ensure that Care Compare data is high-quality and comparable across facilities.
Boccuti, Cristina, Giselle Casillas, and Tricia Neuman. Reading the Stars: Nursing Home Quality Star Ratings, Nationally and by State. Issue Brief. KFF, May 14, 2015. https://www.kff.org/report-section/reading-the-stars-nursing-home-quality-star-ratings-nationally-and-by-state-issue-brief/.
Harrison, Jeffrey P., Hanadi Y. Hamadi, Jingren Zhao, and Debra Harrison. “Evaluation of the Quality and Efficiency of Nursing Home Services in the United States Using the Nursing Home Star Rating System.” Journal of Modern Nursing Practice and Research 6, no. 1 (January 28, 2026): 2. https://doi.org/10.53964/jmnpr.2026002.
Institute of Medicine Committee on Nursing Home Regulation. Improving the Quality of Care in Nursing Homes. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 1986. https://doi.org/10.17226/646.
Millar, Roberto J., Christin Diehl, Elizabeth Blake, Oludolapo Fakeye, and Nancy Kusmaul. “Nursing Home Characteristics and Resident Quality of Care Outcomes: A Scoping Review.” Journal of Long-Term Care, May 1, 2024. https://doi.org/10.31389/jltc.235.
Miller, Katherine E. M., Paula Chatterjee, and Rachel M. Werner. “Trends in Supply of Nursing Home Beds, 2011-2019.” JAMA Network Open 6, no. 3 (March 1, 2023): e230640. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.0640.
Shen, Karen, Brian E. McGarry, and Ashvin D. Gandhi. “Health Care Staff Turnover and Quality of Care at Nursing Homes.” JAMA Internal Medicine 183, no. 11 (November 1, 2023): 1247. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2023.5225.
Shippee, Tetyana P., Weiwen Ng, and John R. Bowblis. “Does Living in a Higher Proportion Minority Facility Improve Quality of Life for Racial/Ethnic Minority Residents in Nursing Homes?” Innovation in Aging 4, no. 3 (May 1, 2020): 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igaa014.
Yuan, Yiyang, Kate L. Lapane, Jonggyu Baek, Bill M. Jesdale, and Christine M. Ulbricht. “Nursing Home Star Ratings and New Onset of Depression in Long-Stay Nursing Home Residents.” Journal of the American Medical Directors Association 20, no. 10 (October 2019): 1335-1339.e10. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6768694/.
Yuan, Yiyang, Christopher Louis, Howard Cabral, Jeffrey C. Schneider, Colleen M. Ryan, and Lewis E. Kazis. “Socioeconomic and Geographic Disparities in Accessing Nursing Homes With High Star Ratings.” Journal of the American Medical Directors Association 19, no. 10 (October 2018): 852-859.e2.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jamda.2018.05.017.
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