SKOKIE, IL (April 8, 2014) — The health care centers at six Covenant Retirement Communities received five stars, the highest possible overall rating, in U.S. News & World Report’s sixth annual Best Nursing Homes list.

Covenant centers that received the designation were Covenant Shores in Mercer Island, Washington; Covenant Village of Cromwell in Cromwell, Connecticut; Covenant Village of the Great Lakes in Grand Rapids, Michigan; Covenant Village of Turlock in Turlock, California; Mount Miguel Covenant Village in Spring Valley, California; and Windsor Park in Carol Stream, Illinois.

Out of nearly 16,000 nursing centers nationwide, about 25 percent received an overall five-star rating from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). In 2013, five-star ratings went to just 19 percent.

The goal of the rating system is to help users find a nursing center with a strong track record of good care.

“With the move toward value-based health care, the industry is increasingly focused on the correlation of the cost of care with accountability for outcomes,” says Elizabeth Malzahn, Covenant Retirement Communities national director of health care. “At Covenant Retirement Communities, our primary objective is always quality, responsive care. These ratings demonstrate that our communities are dedicated to that goal.”

Best Nursing Homes draws on data from the CMS in three areas—health inspections, level of nurse staffing, and quality of care—and gives each an overall rating.

U.S. News awarded the “Best Nursing Home” designation to homes that earned an overall rating of five stars from CMS in January 2014.

The report is available exclusively online.