Analysis of 23K Nursing Home Residents’ Patient Data in New York Reveals 93% of NYC Nursing Homes with COVID-19-Positive Patients, Likely to Surge
BOSTON, MASS. – APRIL 23, 2020 – CarePort Health, a care coordination market leader that connects 1,000 hospitals with 110,000 post-acute providers, today released a new report: Preparing for What Comes Next: Where Will COVID-19 Patients Recover? The report leverages real-time patient data from CarePort’s transitions-of-care platform, as well as a survey of nearly 9,000 nursing homes across the United States.
National Survey of Nursing Homes Indicates Upcoming Healthcare Bottlenecks
CarePort surveyed 8,942 nursing homes across the U.S. (which represents 50% of nursing homes in the country) to uncover the impact of COVID-19 on this community. Much focus has been placed on nursing homes as long-term care facilities for the elderly and disabled, but nursing homes also serve as short-term care settings for hospital patients recovering after a severe illness. They are an essential part of the healthcare continuum, especially during this pandemic: experts project 30% of hospitalized COVID-19 patients will require short-term rehabilitative care, and hospitals are unable to discharge patients until a nursing home for convalescence can be found.
- CarePort’s survey found that fewer than 10% of nursing homes nationwide affirmed the ability to take in new COVID-19 patients. 39% said they could not accept new COVID-19 patients, while more than half (51%) could not, or would not, say.
A deep dive into New York nursing home data suggests a higher percentage of facilities have the ability to accept COVID-19 patients, which may be due to the state’s requirement for nursing homes to accept COVID-19 patients:
- In New York, 41% of respondents indicated they had the ability to care for COVID-19 patients discharged from the hospital
- However, in NYC alone, this could still mean a shortage of more than 1,000 beds
“The question we must answer is, what happens to these patients who need further rehabilitative care, but cannot move to an appropriate nursing home setting? Patients will either remain in the hospital, creating bed shortages for other, more critical patients, or are released home where they lack proper care,” noted Lissy Hu, M.D. and CEO, CarePort Health. “We’re making this data available so that this issue will be addressed in capacity planning models.”
Leveraging its own transition-of-care platform, CarePort analyzed patient data from nursing homes within the state of New York (115 nursing homes accounting for 23,611 residents). This data suggests that:
- 93% of NYC nursing homes have COVID-19-positive patients
- In 45% of NYC nursing homes, COVID-19 patients make up more than 10% of the population
- There has been a 41% increase in COVID-19-related symptoms reported in nursing homes, pointing to a potential surge (or surge that has occurred but not yet confirmed due to lack of testing)
This is the second COVID-19 related report issued by CarePort, a wholly owned subsidiary of Allscripts. The company aims to empower healthcare providers and government agencies to take swift, intelligent action that fosters optimized and scalable care for patients infected with, or at greatest risk of, the coronavirus.
CarePort aggregates real-time patient data by bridging Electronic Health Record (EHR) providers, such as Allscripts, Epic, Cerner and Meditech, and nursing home and home health EHR systems. The company collects data on thousands of COVID-19 hospitalization cases every day and tracks patients from their acute to post-acute course of care. This cross-continuum view – combined with data on patient outcomes and demographics – provides comprehensive, trusted insights that can be used to aid clinical decision-making, as well as resource and capacity planning.
