Texas Ombudsman, Greg Shelley, is Interviewed on COVID-19 Nursing Home Data

July 28, 2020

The Houston Chronicle featured a story on coronavirus case data in nursing homes. New data was released by the state of Texas showing how many residents and staff had been infected in individual nursing homes and assisted living facilities. The move to disclose the data increased transparency that advocates and relatives had long demanded.

The information allows individuals to see how many COVID-19 cases have been detected in facilities where their relatives live, and it gives the public a more detailed picture of how outbreaks are spreading among a vulnerable population. One caveat is that some facilities have contracts to accept only COVID-19 patients, so a high number of infections doesn’t necessarily indicate that a center has a problem.

Not knowing how many cases an individual nursing home had was long a source of angst for people trying to figure out where to get care — or whether they should move a family member, said Greg Shelley, program manager of the Harris County Long-term Care Ombudsman Program. Facilities were supposed to update family members about new coronavirus cases, but some didn’t feel staff were being honest, and the public typically had no way of knowing about outbreaks. “Now everybody has access to the same information, which is a big sigh of relief,” Shelley said, adding, “I think it’s going to help quell a lot of anxiety.”

Read the full article.