COVID-19

Nursing Home Data

The Nursing Home COVID-19 Public File includes data reported by nursing homes to the CDC’s National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) system COVID-19 Long Term Care Facility Module, including Resident Impact, Facility Capacity, Staff & Personnel, and Supplies & Personal Protective Equipment, and Ventilator Capacity and Supplies Data Elements.

For a list of Frequently Asked Questions, please click here.

For a full list of variables included in this Public Use File (PUF) and their descriptions, please see the data dictionary. The file contains an individual record for each certified Medicare skilled nursing facility/Medicaid nursing facility and the ending date for each collection week, and is updated weekly. More information on CMS requirements for reporting COVID-19 information can be found here. We note that the presence of cases of COVID-19 in a nursing home does not automatically indicate noncompliance with federal requirements. This information is used to assist with national surveillance of COVID-19 in nursing homes, and support actions to protect the health and safety of nursing home residents.

NOTE: This data may be subject to fluctuations as facilities are given the opportunity to submit and correct their data on the NHSN website. The first deadline for reporting data was 11:59 p.m. EST Sunday, May 17, 2020. Additionally, facilities may opt to report data retrospectively back to January 1, 2020. Therefore, some facilities may be reporting higher overall numbers of cases/deaths compared to other facilities due to their retrospective reporting. Numbers for Week Ending 05/24/2020 may include reporting for any time between 01/01/2020 through 05/24/2020. Reporting for subsequent weeks is on a weekly basis. Data reported for the week ending 05/24/2020 should not be used to perform trend analysis and longitudinal analyses. 

Additionally, data quality checks are performed to identify instances where facilities may have entered incorrect data, such as entering cumulative counts over time instead of new cases, and other data entry errors. In these cases, we will display facilities as having submitted data, but will not include their data in our dataset or analyses to preserve the accuracy of the data presented. Facilities that have submitted erroneous data will have an “N” displayed in the column titled “Passed Quality Assurance Check.”

UPDATE: Beginning with 01/24/2021 data file, CMS implemented changes to its Quality Assurance (QA) methodology to more accurately identify facilities who have entered erroneous data and reduce the number of facilities flagged who have input correct data. Updating the QA criteria has allowed some facilities whose data has been previously suppressed to now be publicly posted. As a result, stakeholders may notice an increase in cumulative COVID-19 resident and staff cases and deaths. However, the increases are nominal and do not significantly impact the overall observed trend of COVID-19 cases and deaths.

For a detailed explanation of the CDC/CMS Nursing Home COVID-19 Data Quality Assurance Process, please click here.

COVID-19 Testing 

As part of CMS’ commitment to protecting nursing home residents, and to boost the surveillance of COVID-19, nursing homes are now required to conduct testing of residents and staff.  More information about these requirements and guidelines can be found here.  These guidelines include testing staff on a certain frequency based on the COVID-19 positivity rate for the county the nursing home resides in.  Rates of county positivity are posted here. (Archive is here.) Facilities should monitor these rates every other week and adjust staff testing accordingly.

The Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH), recently announced that we will begin providing nursing homes with a Point of Care (POC) rapid response testing instrument to bolster each facility’s ability to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The data collected through the NHSN system directly supports this initiative by helping to prioritize the nursing homes with testing needs and an increasing number of cases. For the methodology describing how facilities are prioritized, and a listing of the facilities, please click here. A list of frequently asked questions (FAQs) is also available here. For more information about the testing instruments, please view our recorded webinar. Also, view our toolkit for nursing homes using point of care devices for SARS-CoV-2 testing as a quick reference guide to important information about testing.

You can find a Nursing Home by using the Search box or by zooming in on the map. You can click one of the dots to show data about the Nursing Home. Please note certain providers may not be displayed.

You can use the Filters to search for a particular Nursing Home and filter by Nursing Homes who have and have not submitted data to the CDC, as well as sort by Week Ending to view the most recent week of data. You can also access the Dataset directly for additional data analysis options and to download the dataset.