As COVID rises, a vexing hunt for nursing home vaccine stats

With COVID-19 on the rise again and many nursing home staffers unvaccinated, families still lack easy access to crucial Medicare immunization data that will help them pick the right facility for their loved one

WASHINGTON -- With COVID-19 on the rise again and many nursing home staffers unvaccinated, families still lack easy access to crucial Medicare immunization data that will help them pick the right facility for their loved one. Medicare has a “Care Compare” website for consumers it has spent years refining. But that’s not where the agency is posting vaccination numbers for residents and staff at individual nursing homes. Instead Medicare is relying on a COVID-19 data page geared to researchers. One way to navigate it involves scouring a map for little red dots that represent nursing homes. There's also a huge spreadsheet. It's not seen as particularly user-friendly. “Getting this on ‘Nursing Home Compare’ is super important,” said David Grabowski, a Harvard health care policy professor who has researched the impact of the pandemic on nursing homes. “Having it buried in a spreadsheet is really frustrating.” Access to the numbers is critical because there are wide differences among nursing homes, and within nursing homes, when it comes to vaccination.