Current CMS, CDC and NHSN Nursing Home COVID-19 Data

Mary Madison, RN, RAC-CT, CDP
Clinical Consultant – Briggs Healthcare

CMS has posted the nursing home COVID-19 data for the week ending May 29, 2022.

Comparing the May 29^th data to the previous May 22^nd data shows these changes:

Resident vaccination rate dropped 0.1% for the first time in 4 weeks
Residents with booster doses increased by 0.2% this past week
Staff vaccination rate dropped 0.1% this past week
Staff with booster doses increased by 0.4% this past week
An additional 7,426 resident cases were confirmed/reported this week
A correction (?) of 95 fewer resident deaths were confirmed/reported this week from the previous week
An additional 1,211 staff cases were confirmed/reported this week
A correction (?) of 13 fewer staff deaths were confirmed/reported this week

Please continue your efforts to educate staff, residents and families about the life-saving benefits of vaccination as well as the importance of getting the booster. Lives depend on both.

Cases continue to rise again due to the omicron variant BA.2 and there’s also another subvariant detected as of late April/early May – BA.2.12.1. Additionally, there are more variants out there and the variants are on the rise – BA.4 and BA.5. BA.4 and BA.5 together accounted for an estimated 6% to 7% of new infections in the US in late May. The SARS-CoV-2 virus is not done with us yet.

Be sure to review your facility’s vaccination rates on the list of every nursing home with recent resident and staff vaccination rates and other pertinent data as this data will be used for completing the COVID-19 Matrix during survey. State surveyors look at this data in preparation for your survey. You’ll also need to know your current rate (as reported to NHSN) and provide it to the survey team entering your facility. This data is current as of the week ending May 29, 2022.

The CDC COVID Data Tracker shows these current community transmission levels:

The NHSN Nursing Home Covid-19 Data Dashboard provides this data as of June 6, 2022, at 5:30am ET:

On a related note, I queried the CMS S&C QCOR database again this morning and found these citation rates for F884 and F888. Note that F884 is the highest cited deficiency for this FY at this time; F880 (the umbrella citation for IPC) was the 2^nd highest.