Association of Nursing Home Ratings on Health Inspections, Quality of Care, and Nurse Staffing With COVID-19 Cases

In the US, approximately 27% of deaths due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have occurred among residents of nursing homes (NHs).1 However, why some facilities have been more successful at limiting the spread of infection than others is unclear. For example, those with greater staffing or higher performance on quality measures may be better at containing the spread of COVID-19 among staff and residents. We evaluated whether NHs rated highly by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) across 3 unique domains—health inspections, quality measures, and nurse staffing—had lower COVID-19 cases than facilities with lower ratings.