Recent data from the Census Bureau that indicated a decrease in the percentage of elderly U.S. residents who live in nursing homes provide a "highly misleading picture of nursing home care in America today," Alan Rosenbloom, president of the Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care, writes in a USA Today letter to the editor (Rosenbloom, USA Today, 10/5). According to the data, 7.4% of residents ages 75 and older lived in nursing homes in 2006, compared with 8.1% in 2000 and 10.2% in 1990 (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 9/27).

Rosenbloom writes that "based on our internal data, nursing homes today are caring for even more people than in the past," although "ever-increasing numbers receive short-term rehabilitation and return home." The "only accurate assessment" of nursing home care would "evaluate the total number of people served annually -- not the number of people served at a specific point in time," according to Rosenbloom.

He writes, "The good news is that more patients of nursing homes are returning home than ever, and the short-term rehabilitative care they receive is better than ever," adding, "We should be celebrating the changing face of nursing homes and their place in a robust health care system for our aging baby boomers, rather than offering simplistic conclusions from misleading data" (USA Today, 10/5).

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