After Months Of Refusing, Indiana Will Identify Nursing Homes With Coronavirus Outbreaks

Emily Hopkins-Indianapolis Star

July 1, 2020

Indiana officials will release facility-level data for COVID-19 in nursing homes, a drastic departure from previous policy, which shielded that information from public view.

For weeks, family members of nursing home residents, lawmakers, resident advocates, and media, including IndyStar, have repeatedly called on the government to identify the homes suffering from COVID-19 outbreaks. But state officials repeatedly refused.

Dr. Dan Rusyniak, chief medical officer for the Family and Social Services Administration, said the state is changing course after the largest associations that represent long-term care facilities and AARP expressed their support for providing facility-level information. The Indiana Health Care Association and the Indiana Center for Assisted Living, which represents and lobby on behalf of the long-term care industry, expressed their support for releasing facility-level data, according to the state.

“We’ve started from the beginning that we have been focused on early identification and mitigation of COVID-19 outbreaks in long-term care facilities,” Rusyniak said during a press conference. “As we have all learned, responding to this pandemic requires us to continuously evaluate our approaches, and when appropriate, to change them. This is one of those times.”

Past Refusals

Amid initial concerns about the lack of information, Dr. Kristina Box, the state’s health commissioner, issued an order on April 8 requiring nursing homes to report positive cases and deaths to state and local health departments within 24 hours. By that time, 31 people had died in 12 facilities. On April 27, the health department began posting statewide data regarding long-term care facilities to its dashboard.

Gov. Eric Holcomb and Box, however, repeatedly denied requests for information about outbreaks at specific nursing homes, despite news reports of families who said they had trouble getting information about their loved ones from nursing homes.

Box cited the “personal” relationship between facilities and family members, while Holcomb referenced his respect to the homes as private businesses, even though more than 90% of nursing homes in Indiana are owned by county hospitals.