After the release of a recent Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General report on 2007 nursing home violations, states are coming out in defense of their records.

The report, which was released this week, found that more than 90% of the nation’s nursing homes were cited for federal violations last year. While Georgia state officials say they agree with HHS’ assessment, they argue that the numbers look worse than they really are. A total 88% of Georgia’s nursing homes were cited, according to HHS. But speaking to Atlanta’s public radio station WABE 90.1 FM, a Georgia state health official said that most of those infractions were for minor offenses, like housekeeping and maintenance issues, or food issues.

Idaho health officials share much the same view of the HHS report. All of Idaho’s homes received a citation, according to the report. A CBS affiliate in Boise spoke to one Idaho health official who said that his state reports even the tiniest infractions, unlike other states. He notes that, while an average of 17% of nursing homes nationwide were cited for deficiencies that caused harm or danger to residents, that number was only 3% in Idaho.

Rhode Island fared much better than some other states, the report found. Some 76% of its nursing homes were cited for an infraction. And the average number of citations per home was 2.5, far lower than any other state in the union.

“It was gratifying to see that our state did better than anyone else with respect to the number and percentage of deficiencies,” Virginia Burke, president of the Rhode Island Health Care Association told McKnight’s.

But Burke, like her counterparts in other states, also doesn’t feel the survey process is entirely fair. It’s not a very good stand-alone measure of quality care, and a lot of it is arbitrary, she says.

“You have to look at a number of quality measures before you can make a broad statement about the quality of care in one state versus another,” Burke said.