| | The Department of Veterans Affairs has tracked detailed quality statistics on its 133 nursing homes for years, but has kept them from public view, depriving veterans of potentially crucial health care information. Nearly half of VA nursing homes nationwide â 60 â received the agency's lowest ranking of one out of five stars as of Dec. 31, 2017, according to internal documents obtained in an investigation by USA TODAY and "The Boston Globe." The statistics paint a picture of government nursing homes that scored worse on average than their private-sector counterparts on nine of 11 key indicators last year, including rates of antipsychotic drug prescription and residentsâ deterioration. In some cases, the VA ratings were only slightly worse. In others, such as the number of residents who are in pain, the VA nursing homes scored dramatically worse.
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