Tag: nursing homes

Cuomo Aides Spent Months Hiding Nursing Home Death Toll

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/28/nyregion/cuomo-aides-nursing-home-deaths.html?smid=tw-share

Excerpt:

Aides to the New York governor, Andrew M. Cuomo, repeatedly prevented state health officials from releasing the number of nursing home deaths in the pandemic.

The effort by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s office to obscure the pandemic death toll in New York nursing homes was far greater than previously known, with aides repeatedly overruling state health officials over a span of at least five months, according to interviews and newly unearthed documents.

Mr. Cuomo’s most senior aides engaged in a sustained effort to prevent the state’s own health officials, including the commissioner, Howard Zucker, from releasing the true death toll to the public or sharing it with state lawmakers, these interviews and documents showed.

A scientific paper, which incorporated the data, was never published. An audit of the numbers by a top Cuomo aide was finished months before it became publicly known. Two letters, drafted by the Health Department and meant for state legislators, were never sent.

….

The Cuomo administration’s handling of nursing home death data now is the subject of a federal investigation, one of at least four overlapping inquiries into the governor and his administration. As of this month, more than 15,500 nursing home residents with Covid-19 have died.

Author(s): Goodman, J David; Mckinley, Jesse; Hakim, Danny.

Publication Date: 28 April 2021

Publication Site: New York Times

Measuring the COVID-19 Policy Response Around the World

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://freopp.org/measuring-the-covid-19-policy-response-around-the-world-2e37a7a97bc8

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Excerpt:

In the U.S., 38% of all deaths from COVID-19 have occurred in nursing homes and assisted living facilities that house only 0.6% of the U.S. population. The failure to protect this population is not only a problem in the U.S., however; a survey of international countries found similar results.

Indeed, among 22 countries reporting care home fatalities, the U.S. sits squarely in the middle in terms of the share of fatalities occurring in care homes. Among WIHI countries, Canada (80%) and Australia (75%) had the highest concentration of fatalities in nursing homes, whereas Singapore (11%) and Hungary (23%) the lowest.

While Ireland reported a care home fatality share of 56%, its true share is closer to Canada’s, because Ireland, Finland, New Zealand, and Norway do not report deaths of care home residents who die outside of long-term care facilities. In other countries, roughly one-quarter of COVID-19 deaths of care home residents occur in hospitals and other external locations.

Author(s): Avik Roy

Publication Date: 5 April 2021

Publication Site: FREOPP

Mortality with Meep: Location of Death Data for 1999-2020, Entire United States

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://marypatcampbell.substack.com/p/mortality-with-meep-looking-at-location

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For a few locations, it’s pretty clear that COVID explains almost all their excess deaths: inpatient healthcare facilities and nursing homes. Indeed, it looks like over 100% of the nursing home excess mortality came from COVID, which accords with what I see with excess mortality for older people.

However, there is a lot of excess mortality for people who died at home, and most of that is currently unexplained by COVID.

I don’t think it will be — I think we will find those excess diabetes, heart attack, and ‘unintentional injury’ deaths will have been at home, and because of lockdowns there weren’t other people around to get these people to treatment before they died. This accords with what Emma Woodhouse saw for Illinois – that pattern holds for the entire U.S., it seems.

Author(s): Mary Pat Campbell

Publication Date: 20 April 2021

Publication Site: STUMP at substack

Maggots, Rape and Yet Five Stars: How U.S. Ratings of Nursing Homes Mislead the Public

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/13/business/nursing-homes-ratings-medicare-covid.html

Excerpt:

Much of the information submitted to C.M.S. is wrong. Almost always, that incorrect information makes the homes seem cleaner and safer than they are.

Some nursing homes inflate their staffing levels by, for example, including employees who are on vacation. The number of patients on dangerous antipsychotic medications is frequently understated. Residents’ accidents and health problems often go unreported.

In one sign of the problems with the self-reported data, nursing homes that earn five stars for their quality of care are nearly as likely to flunk in-person inspections as to ace them. But the government rarely audits the nursing homes’ data.

Data suggest that at least some nursing homes know in advance about what are supposed to be surprise inspections. Health inspectors still routinely found problems with abuse and neglect at five-star facilities, yet they rarely deemed the infractions serious enough to merit lower ratings.

At homes whose five stars masked serious problems, residents developed bed sores so severe that their bones were exposed. Others lost the ability to move.

Author(s): Silver-Greenberg, Jessica; Gebeloff, Robert.

Publication Date: 13 March 2021

Publication Site: New York Times

F.B.I. Investigating Whether Cuomo Aides Gave False Data on Nursing Homes

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/19/nyregion/cuomo-nursing-homes-covid.html

Excerpt:

The state revealed the full count — which added thousands of additional deaths — only in January, after a report by the state attorney general suggested an undercount, and after a state court ordered the data be made public in response to a lawsuit filed by the Empire Center, a conservative think tank. As of this month, New York has recorded the deaths of more than 15,000 nursing home residents with Covid-19.

Melissa DeRosa, Mr. Cuomo’s top aide, tried to explain why the administration had withheld the data last year to state lawmakers in a conference call, saying she and others “froze” because of the federal request for data, which came in late August as the governor faced criticism over nursing homes.

But more than two months earlier, in June, Ms. DeRosa and other aides removed such data from a report prepared by the Health Department, an investigation by The New York Times found.

Author(s): J. David Goodman, Nicole Hong and Luis Ferré-Sadurní

Publication Date: 19 March 2021

Publication Site: New York Times

Federal probe into nursing home COVID-19 death coverup circles closer to Cuomo

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://nypost.com/2021/03/19/federal-probe-into-nursing-home-covid-death-coverup-gets-closer-to-cuomo/

Excerpt:

Investigators have contacted lawyers for Cuomo’s aides, interviewed senior state Health Department officials and subpoenaed the governor’s office for documents relating to the alleged data coverup, the sources said.

The New York Times first reported the probe earlier Friday, citing four unnamed sources with knowledge of the investigation.

Health officials are being grilled about nursing home-related COVID-19 case and death data the state submitted last year to the Justice Department, sources told The Post.

Author(s): Larry Celona

Publication Date: 19 March 2021

Publication Site: NY Post

Report: FBI Now Probing Cuomo’s Corporate Immunity Law

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.dailyposter.com/p/report-fbi-now-probing-cuomos-corporate

Excerpt:

The probe follows a Daily Poster investigative series detailing how one of Cuomo’s biggest donors, the Greater New York Hospital Association (GNYHA) — a lobby group that represents hospital systems and nursing home operators — said it “drafted and aggressively advocated for” the corporate immunity provision. Cuomo’s administration quietly inserted the measure into his state’s budget as thousands lay dying from COVID-19 in New York nursing homes. 

Critics say that the immunity law removed a key deterrent to corporate malfeasance, and victims and their families were subsequently stripped of their legal rights. Cuomo’s original executive order shielding front line health care workers from lawsuits was widely reported, but not the governor’s separate budget language extending immunity to hospital and nursing home corporations’ executives and board members. 

Author(s): David Sirota, Joel Warner, Andrew Perez, Julia Rock

Publication Date: 18 March 2021

Publication Site: Daily Poster

COVID-19 Nursing Home Data

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://data.cms.gov/stories/s/COVID-19-Nursing-Home-Data/bkwz-xpvg/

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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.

Date Accessed: 15 March 2021

Publication Site: CMS

Nursing Home Residents Die From COVID at Record Rate Over New Year’s Period

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.aarp.org/caregiving/health/info-2021/nursing-homes-new-years-covid-deaths.html

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The COVID-19 death rate in U.S. nursing homes hit a new high in the weeks surrounding New Year’s Day, a new AARP analysis of federal data shows. It found that roughly 1 in every 51 residents died from COVID-19 over the four-week period from Dec. 21 to Jan. 17. A total of 19,299 deaths were reported. 

The death rate captured in the analysis topped that of previous four-week reporting periods, making it the highest COVID-19 death rate reported to the government since the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) began requiring nursing homes to do so in late May. 

While the record high death rate in the four weeks ending Jan. 17 represents only a slight increase from the previous month, when 1 in every 53 residents died from COVID-19, it is more than a quadrupling of the resident death rate at the end of the summer. 

Author(s): Emily Paulin

Publication Date: 11 February 2021

Publication Site: AARP

Nursing Home ‘Patients Will Die’: Staff Warned NJ Commissioner About COVID-19 Order

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tyler-o-neil/2021/03/15/nursing-home-patients-will-die-staff-warned-nj-commissioner-about-covid-19-order-n1432596

Excerpt:

“Patients will die,” an unidentified administrator declared, according to a recording of the March 21, 2020 meeting first reported by NJ Advance Media. “You understand that by asking us to take COVID patients, by demanding we take COVID patients, that patients will die in nursing homes that wouldn’t have otherwise died had we screened them out.”

About 8,000 COVID-19 deaths — roughly 40 percent of New Jersey’s 21,000 COVID-19 deaths — trace back to nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. On March 31, Murphy’s administration directed nursing homes to re-admit residents who had been discharged from hospitals while recovering from COVID-19.

While Persichilli’s guidance also directed nursing homes to house these residents in a separate wing, in order to avoid infecting other patients, many nursing home administrators warned that such separation would be incomplete and would fail to prevent the spread of the virus.

Author(s): Tyler O’Neil

Publication Date: 15 March 2021

Publication Site: PJ Media

Is WA Gov. Jay Inslee Single-handedly Responsible for America’s COVID Outbreak?

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bethbaumann/2021/03/13/is-wa-gov-jay-inslee-single-handedly-responsible-for-americas-covid-outbreak-n2586203

Excerpt:

Washington State’s Aging and Long-Term Support Administration, which falls under the Department of Social and Health Services, directed nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients that were no longer needing “acute care” in a hospital. The goal was to “transition” those patients to “alternative settings” 

“Our primary strategy to create capacity in acute care hospitals is working with participating patients and families to transition to nursing homes,” a March 20, 2020 memo stated. “Once in the nursing home, Home and Community Services staff will work the eligible individual and their family to transition to a permanent home and community-based setting of their choice.”

In exchange for taking in those patients, nursing home facilities would receive an additional $100 Medicare add-on for up to six months, The Post Millennial. That funding was part of two Medicaid waivers the state filed. 

Author(s): Beth Baumann

Publication Date: 13 March 2021

Publication Site: Townhall