(C) Iowa Capital Dispatch.
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Iowa nursing homes dispute federal data on staff deaths from COVID-19
['Clark Kauffman', 'More From Author', '- February']
Date: 2022-02-28 00:00:00
Iowa nursing homes are disputing the accuracy of federal data that indicates 36 workers at 22 Iowa care facilities have died of COVID-19 during the pandemic.
Staff deaths are publicly reported by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which publishes regularly updated national data on COVID-related infections, vaccinations and deaths in nursing homes. That information is republished by AARP and others.
While no questions have been raised over the data on vaccines, infections and resident deaths, the data on staff deaths is being challenged by some Iowa nursing home operators.
For example, CMS reports that the Iowa home with the highest number of staff deaths is Azria Health Winterset in Madison County, where seven workers have allegedly died of COVID-19. The Azria Health Rose Vista facility in Harrison County, places second, with four reported staff deaths. The Azria Health facility in Des Moines County, called Prairie Ridge, has one reported employee death, according to CMS.
But Carrie Ramaekers, chief operating officer at Azria Health, says all of those numbers are inaccurate and the company has not had any staff deaths attributable to COVID-19.
That’s also the situation at Touchstone Healthcare Community in Woodbury County, where CMS reports that three workers at the home have died of the virus and only 58% of the staff is fully vaccinated. The administrator of the home, Greg Gregerson, says Touchstone had zero staff deaths and that roughly 15% of the staff has not been fully vaccinated.
Until recently, CMS was reporting that the Monticello Nursing and Rehab Center in Jones County had two staff deaths during the pandemic. That changed two weeks ago, and the home is now reported to have had zero deaths. Administrator Laurissa Martin said a nurse at the facility provides CMS with infection and death data and appears to have reported two deaths to CMS in error.
In response to a question about the accuracy of CMS’ staff-death data, an agency representative said Monday that CMS is “working” on the question.
Throughout the pandemic, the Iowa Department of Public Health has refused to disclose even statewide figures on staff deaths in nursing homes. It has done so while citing unspecified “privacy” concerns, even while CMS reports staff deaths on a facility-specific basis.
On its website, CMS says all of the staff-death data is reported by the facilities themselves and reflects “staff and facility personnel with suspected or laboratory positive COVID-19 who died since Jan. 1, 2020.” The Iowa Capital Dispatch reviewed the staff-death information that was reported by CMS in September 2021, October 2021, January 2022 and February 2022 and found no inconsistencies in the Iowa-specific data.
Nationally, CMS says, 2,289 nursing home workers have died of COVID-19 during the pandemic. Since January of this year, there have been 15 to 30 staff deaths reported each week at nursing homes, the agency says.
Kaiser Health News’ analysis of the most recently reported data indicates that nationally, deaths in long-term care facilities make up at least 23% of all COVID-19 deaths. Although that percentage represents a significant decrease from the early days of the pandemic, nursing homes continued to experience disproportionately high death rates even during the more recent surge in infections.
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