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 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 is preliminary data and 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. Sunday, May 17, 2020. As the number of facilities reporting increases each week, it will increase the reported number of COVID-19 cases, suspected cases, and deaths each week. Additionally, facilities may opt to report cumulative data on their first collection date retrospectively to January 1, 2020. Due to these factors, the number of cases, suspected cases, and deaths reported by some facilities’ first data submission may be higher because it reflects data over a longer length of time, rather than in the last seven days. As a result, the first few weeks of data posted on this site are impacted by a change in the number of facilities reporting each week, and facilities reporting cumulative numbers in their first data submission, in addition to the actual number of cases, suspected cases, or deaths that occurred in the seven days preceding the weekly reporting deadline.

Additionally, data quality checks were 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.”
Therefore, CMS cautions users to consider these factors when performing any analysis. For example, data reported over the first few weeks should not be used to perform trend analysis and longitudinal analyses. We expect the data to stabilize as nursing homes become more familiar with how to submit data via the NHSN Long Term Care Facility Module. Please view the Data Dictionary for more information about data limitations.

See full article at CMS.gov