U.S. News & World Report, publisher of Best Hospitals and Best Children’s Hospitals, recently released its Best Nursing Homes 2014 report, highlighting the top nursing homes in every state and nearly 100 major metropolitan areas.

In Franklin County, Russellville Health Care, Inc., and Generations of Red Bay, LLC both earned a five-star overall rating.

“The staff of Russellville Health Care is very proud of this accomplishment,” said Brenda Hovater, administrator of Russellville Health Care, Inc.

“Alabama has 228 nursing homes, and 67 nursing homes received this award. I am so proud of all of our employees for the role they played in our facility receiving this important distinction.

“This award recognizes our staff’s hard work, excellent care, dedication and love for our residents. Everyone takes pride in doing a great job.”

Now in its sixth year, U.S. News’ Best Nursing Homes is designed to help the millions of Americans who will spend time in a nursing home in 2014.

Best Nursing Homes provides data and information on care, safety, health inspections, staffing and more for nearly every nursing facility in the U.S.

A searchable database lets users find highly rated nursing homes by distance as well as by location. Each facility’s profile displays health and fire violations, performance in important clinical categories and how much time nursing staff spends with residents.

To create Best Nursing Homes 2014, U.S. News drew on data from Nursing Home Compare, a program run by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the federal agency that sets and enforces standards for nursing homes.

A rating of one to five stars is collected from each nursing home in three different categories: deficiencies in state-conducted health inspections, nursing staff time with residents, and quality of medical care provided to residents.

U.S. News awarded the “Best Nursing Homes” designation to facilities that recently earned the agency’s highest overall rating of five stars.

The ratings cover almost 16,000 nursing homes nationwide and are freely available at www.usnews.com/best-nursing-homes.