GAO Releases New Study on Outbreaks of COVID-19 in LTC

A new U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) analysis of CDC and CMS data found that transmission of COVID-19 in the community surrounding a nursing home, known as community spread, had the strongest association with the duration of an outbreak. In the analysis of six nursing homes in four states, the GAO identified a range of outbreak experiences, including critical challenges and some successes. For example, two critical challenges included:

• Staff shortages. Officials from five nursing homes described experiencing staffing shortages during outbreaks. For example, officials from one nursing home described a staffing crisis, noting that at one point the home was down about 25 percent of its workforce.

• Low staff morale. Officials from three nursing homes discussed the psychosocial effect the pandemic had on their staff and the difficulties in maintaining staff morale. For example, officials from one nursing home described how the outbreaks took away the joy of caregiving from staff, and officials believed that many staff were left traumatized.

Read the GAO report.