In Connecticut, long-term care facilities with lower nurse staffing levels had higher rates of confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths, a new study shows.
Published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, the study is based on an examination of data for 215 nursing homes published on the Connecticut Department of Health and Human Services' website as of April 16. The data was compared to data from CMS' nursing home compare website, which tracks quality, staffing and health outcomes for nursing homes across the country.
Researchers found that the average number of confirmed cases was eight per nursing home, and the average number of confirmed deaths was 1.7 per nursing home.
Nursing homes with lower nurse staffing levels had higher rates of confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths.
Among facilities with at least one confirmed case, researchers estimated that a 20-minute increase in the amount of time nurses spent with each resident daily was linked to a 26 percent drop in coronavirus-related deaths.