One-Third Of Phoenix Nursing Home Coronavirus Cases Hospitalized

PHOENIX, AZ — The breakneck pace of data collection on new coronavirus cases in Arizona paints a dire picture for long-term care facilities, where the elderly residents are among the most vulnerable to infection and death due to the COVID-19 disease. But for nursing home advocates, it's what that data doesn't show that is causing new concern.

"What we do not know, and what Arizonans with family members in long-term care facilities are desperate to know, is which facilities have reported cases," Dana Marie Kennedy, state director for AARP Arizona, said in a letter to Gov. Doug Ducey sent earlier this week.

The letter, which was published to the AARP website, begged Ducey to make the names of facilities with confirmed cases of the coronavirus illness available to the public.

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Statewide, no counties are providing data for individual long-term care facilities. Maricopa County, which has the state's highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases at 2,146, appears to be the only county in Arizona to release its own COVID-19 statistics for nursing homes.

As of Tuesday, the Maricopa County Department of Public Health reported that one-third of all nursing home patients with COVID-19 have been hospitalized. The latest numbers show:

• 42 long-term care facilities have had at least one resident or staffer with COVID-19.
• 198 residents tested positive for COVID-19, with 65 hospitalized and 32 dead.
• 110 nursing home staff with COVID-19, with six hospitalized and no deaths recorded.

It's not clear whether Arizona will ever release data on specific nursing homes.

At a news conference Tuesday, Arizona Department of Health Services Director Dr. Cara Christ said the department is barred from disclosing such data as "protected health information." However, AARP Arizona contends that medical privacy laws pertain "to the privacy of the individual and does not apply to facilities."

Misleading Data?

While advocates seek increased transparency, not everyone agrees the data would prove immediately useful. Dave Voepel, CEO of the Arizona Health Care Association, suggests that simply attaching a number of cases to a facility could result in overstating the actual risk.

"It seems that it's a bit misleading to say, 'This place has six cases,' because do they really? If you report that you have a COVID patient in the building, but they tested positive a month ago, and now they don't have signs and symptoms, that means they recovered and aren't COVID-positive."

Voepel acknowledges that the complexity of the coronavirus makes reporting a challenge for nursing home staff who are more familiar tracking and fighting the flu. He says he's heard from nursing homes that treat every visitor who enters the building as if they are already infected.

"This virus doesn't work like the flu; it's very detrimental. It's a wicked killing machine for those who are older than 60 and who have respiratory issues, and it becomes quite problematic when it gets into a skilled nursing center," he says. "Even in a hospital, it's brutal."

According to Voepel, many long-term care facilities in Arizona are now preparing for the "peak" of coronavirus cases, which models predict will arrive later this month. The preparations include arranging new wings and quarantine areas for the expected wave of cases.

Preparing for the peak is most important challenge for nursing homes, and he suggests that simply having more data — which is often several days out of date by the time it's reported — may not be useful for those adjusting to day-by-day changes.

"Let's not have some false sense of security here," he advises. "We're never going to have a handle on all the numbers. If we have the numbers, then fine, but we have to do something now."