COVID-19 in nursing homes: most homes had multiple outbreaks and weeks of sustained transmission from May 2020 through January 2021 : report to Congressional addressees
- Collection:
- Health Policy and Services Research
- Contributor(s):
- United States. Government Accountability Office. issuing body. United States. Congress. issuing body.
- Publication:
- Washington, DC : United States Government Accountability Office, May 2021
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- COVID-19 -- epidemiology Government Regulation Nursing Homes -- standards United States Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (U.S.)
- Genre(s):
- Technical Report
- Abstract:
- Why GAO did this study. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on the 1.4 million elderly or disabled residents in the nation’s more than 15,000 Medicare- and Medicaid-certified nursing homes. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is responsible for ensuring that nursing homes nationwide meet federal quality standards. The CARES Act includes a provision directing GAO to monitor the federal pandemic response. GAO was also asked to review CMS oversight of nursing homes in light of the pandemic. This report describes the frequency and duration of COVID-19 outbreaks in nursing homes. Future GAO reports will further examine nursing homes’ experiences with COVID-19 outbreaks. To conduct this work, GAO analyzed CDC data on COVID-19 reported by nursing homes each week of the review period from May 2020 through January 2021, the most recent data available at the time GAO conducted its review. Using CDC’s definition of an outbreak, GAO determined the number and duration of outbreaks each nursing home experienced during the review period. GAO included data from the 13,380 Medicare- and Medicaid-certified homes (88 percent of Medicare- and Medicaid-certified homes) that passed CDC and CMS quality checks each week of the review period—the most reliable data for calculating the number and duration of outbreaks. GAO also categorized the nursing homes into two groups based on the duration of their longest outbreak: 1) those nursing homes with outbreaks lasting less than 5 weeks and 2) those nursing homes with outbreaks lasting at least 5 weeks.
- Copyright:
- The National Library of Medicine believes this item to be in the public domain. (More information)
- Extent:
- 1 online resource (1 PDF file (ii, 19 pages))
- Illustrations:
- Illustrations
- NLM Unique ID:
- 9918317484106676 (See catalog record)
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/9918317484106676