In the course of reformation of the health-care system the impact of measuring the quality of life steadily rises. The current study reports the disease-comprehensive quality of life of the elderly who live in nursing homes and compares these results with the reference value of the German population. Furthermore, the results from the different nursing homes are compared with one another in order to prove the direct influence of the nursing home itself on the subjective quality of life of the habitants. The survey was conducted with the generic questionnaire EQ-5D which is an approved index-instrument for health-related quality of life measurement and has been translated into 102 languages so far. In total 342 persons from 8 different nursing homes took part in the survey, at least 25 persons from each nursing home. On the one hand the results show interesting divergences in the quality of life level between habitants and the German population. Differences of at least 2- up to 10-fold values have been proved. For example, there was a discrepancy in the fields of problems related to the habitant's sex, which was not documented in the study of German population. On the other hand high discrepancies when comparing the nursing homes among each other could be proved, although the age structure as well as the distribution between the sexes in at least 7 nursing homes was identical. So it seems that a direct impact of the nursing home on the quality of life of the habitants could be shown. The present study raises many new questions which implicate the need for further surveys. These findings may have a proximate effect on the future health-care system, which will have to involve age-based health-care provision as well as innovative concepts of caring.