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The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced it is posting up to 10 measures of quality for individual nursing homes online to help people select a home and to encourage homes to improve. The information comes from the homes themselves in reports to the federal government.

"Our real target is consumers, so that people who are having to make a decision about putting a loved one in a nursing home will have an additional tool," said Pam Negri, a spokeswoman for the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

For nursing home residents, who often are recovering from surgery or are otherwise very ill, not all pain can be eliminated. The federal report is intended to give an indication of how well is each facility is managing the problem.

At Alaska's biggest nursing home, Providence Extended Care Center, 13 percent of the long-term residents experience pain. At Heritage Place nursing home in Soldotna, it's 23 percent, and at Wildflower Court in Juneau, it's 31 percent.

The quality measures, posted at www.medicare.gov, should at least provide a basis for questions, said Ron Cowan, Alaska's long-term care ombudsman.

"People will be able to look at any given nursing home, and among other things compare rates of having a particular problem with rates in other nursing homes whether in Alaska or the Lower 48," Cowan said.

Of Alaska's 15 nursing homes, seven have at least some quality measures listed. The others don't have enough patients to produce statistically valid results, Negri said.

"I think it's important for people when they are considering a nursing home to have all the information they can get their hands on," said Providence administrator Ron Bergstrom. "It will be most helpful if people combine it with a personal visit. I wouldn't use it as an isolated item."

For instance, residents rarely acquire pressure sores at the home, but may come there already suffering with them, and then are treated, he said.