Washington ? About 35,000 fewer nursing home residents are kept in restraints on a daily basis — down 23 percent from two years ago — according to a federal report released Wednesday that also found fewer patients in pain.

The Bush administration, the nursing home industry and patient advocates said the declines show the value of the administration’s 2-year-old program to tackle serious quality problems in many homes by requiring the nation’s 16,400 nursing homes to disclose data on care.

The information is posted to help consumers make better choices and to prompt the homes to improve their performance. It is available on the government’s Web site, www.medicare.gov, or by calling 1-800-633-4227.

“When we made these measurements public, then people paid attention,” said John Rother, policy director for the 35 million-member seniors’ group AARP.

All the information is based on data the nursing homes must routinely collect from residents as part of their participation in the federal Medicare program.

About 1.6 million people live in nursing homes daily. During a year, more than 3 million people have a nursing home stay, the report from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said.

In the middle of 2002, 9.7 percent of nursing home residents were restrained on any day. Two years later, the number was 7.5 percent.

Measurements of pain among long-term and short-term nursing home patients also improved, dropping 38 percent and 11 percent, respectively.

The report showed a slight increase, 2 percent, in the percentage of patients with pressure, or bed, sores. But among a select group of homes that focused on the problem, there was an 8 percent decline in the percentage of residents with painful sores that can lead to serious infection and can indicate neglect.

Dr. Mark McClellan, the Medicare and Medicaid administrator, cited examples of homes in which residents are not restrained and few have bed sores. The 150-bed Eliza Jennings Home in Cleveland, which does not restrain patients as a matter of policy, showed an 84 percent drop in sores, he said.

“It matters which nursing home you choose,” McClellan said.