Nursing-home information on provider pages and in the explorers comes from the CMS Care Compare public datasets for Medicare/Medicaid-certified nursing homes, published by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (U.S. Government, public domain).

What source is used

The CMS Care Compare “nursing homes” data files, including Provider Information (ratings, beds, staffing), Health Deficiencies and Fire Safety Deficiencies (survey findings), Penalties (fines and payment denials), Ownership, and selected Quality Measures.

What data is imported

Facility-level public fields only:

Overall, health-inspection, staffing, and quality star ratings.
Certified beds, average residents, and reported staffing hours.
Deficiency citations — tag, description, and scope/severity, grouped into neutral harm bands (potential / actual / immediate jeopardy).
Penalties — fine amounts and payment-denial actions reported in the source.
Ownership roles and the owner names the source reports.

No patient-level data is ever imported or stored — no names, diagnoses, medications, member IDs, or records. We store facility-level public fields only.

How often it is refreshed

CMS publishes these files on a periodic schedule. We import on a recurring schedule, and every module shows its import date and data period (and links here). See the admin → Data sources area for current freshness.

How records are matched

We link a Grand Rapids Care provider to its official facility record using the CMS Certification Number (CCN) and/or NPI, through our entity-matching process. Official data is shown on a provider page only after a human-approved match.

What confidence means

Each match carries a confidence label reflecting how strongly the identifiers and attributes agree. Low-confidence matches are held for human review and are not shown publicly until approved. Confidence describes identity certainty — that this record is this facility — not quality.

What the data can and cannot prove

Can: show point-in-time, official measures (ratings, staffing, cited deficiencies, penalties) exactly as reported in the public source.
Cannot: prove the quality of care you personally will receive, predict future outcomes, or establish that any problem was “caused by” the facility.
Missing data does not necessarily mean zero problems. “Unavailable” means the measure was unavailable in the imported source — not that it is zero.

Limitations

Ratings and findings are point-in-time and can lag recent inspections or changes in management/staffing. Surveys vary in timing across facilities. Always verify current conditions directly with the facility.

Report a data issue

If something looks wrong — a mismatched facility, an outdated relationship, or a figure that doesn’t match the source — please contact us with the facility name and what you observed. We do not alter official source records; we correct how they are matched and displayed, and we point to the official correction pathway. A facility can also request a correction through its provider dashboard.

Sources

CMS Care Compare / Provider Data Catalog — https://data.cms.gov/provider-data/
Nursing-home data files & data dictionary — https://data.cms.gov/provider-data/topics/nursing-homes