A first look inside Covid-19's impact at Arizona nursing homes shows hundreds of cases and scores of deaths among residents and staff.
In Arizona, 227 residents in 69 nursing homes were diagnosed with Covid-19, with 88 deaths, according to data released Monday by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid.
Also affected were nursing home staff, with 372 cases and one death reported.
As of June 1, the Arizona Department of Health Services reported 917 total coronavirus deaths.
However, this new data includes only about half of the 143 total nursing homes in the state, as CMS continues to collect data from all nursing homes.
Nationwide, 54.10% of the nation's 15,4112 nursing homes have submitted their Covid-19 data to CMS, reporting 60,439 nursing home resident cases and 34,442 staff cases. Of those cases, 25,923 nursing home residents and another 449 staff have died.
"Of the nursing home reported data, one in four facilities had at least one Covid-19 case and one in five facilities had at least one Covid-related death," CMS Administrator Seema Verma told media in a national press conference on June 1.
Plans call for releasing data specific to each nursing home later this week, she said.
On Monday, Verma unveiled enhanced enforcement for nursing homes with violations of long-standing infection control practices.
States are being held accountable for conducting infection control surveys of nursing homes by July 31. If they don't comply, states' CARES Act fiscal year 2021 allocation could be reduced. That money would be redistributed to states that complete 100% of their infection control surveys by July 31, she said.
But it's not all punitive, she said. CMS is providing technical assistance through Quality Improvement Organizations to help nursing homes implement infection control best practices.
