NEW JERSEY – Twenty-four nursing homes in New Jersey received the lowest rating in a recently released U.S. News & World Report publication that evaluated nursing homes across the country.

Homes were given an overall rating, a rating for short-term rehabilitation care and a new rating this year that evaluates long-term care. Twenty-four received an overall rating of "1" or "2" and "below average" label for either short- or long-term care, according to the report. In New Jersey, 38 homes received the highest overall rating of five, 125 homes received a high-performing rating for short-term care and 22 homes received a high-performing rating for long-term care. Read more: 137 NJ Nursing Homes Make U.S. News 'Best' Ratings

"This year, we introduced a long-term care rating," Zach Adams, a senior health data analyst at U.S. News, told Patch. "This is for people who need ongoing daily assistance in stuff like health-related and personal care."

The report follows another one released by the federal government earlier this year that gave 29 nursing homes in New Jersey a one-star rating. Read more: 29 NJ Nursing Homes Receive Lowest Rating From Federal Gov't

In the U.S. News report, the overall ratings for nursing homes in 2019-20 are based exclusively on the short-term and long-term care ratings, Adams said. A strong emphasis was placed on staffing in methodology to compile the "U.S. News Best Nursing Home" ranking for 2019-20. Adams said staffing levels are strongly associated with quality and safety.

"We think everyone deserves to get the right amount of time and attention," Adams said, explaining that the publication measured the percentage of days a nursing home met the federal standards for registered nurse staffing. In addition to having sufficient staff overall, the publication wanted to make sure nursing homes are still meeting some threshold on their less well-staffed days.

Patient outcomes — both positive and negative — are also a key part of the methodology.