1 in 4 Wisconsin nursing homes hit by COVID-19, data show. One facility reports 57 deaths.

One in four Wisconsin nursing homes have had at least one case of COVID-19, with one Milwaukee facility reporting 57 deaths, according to federal data released Thursday.

But the data, highly anticipated for weeks, is also deeply flawed and underestimates the scope of coronavirus in U.S. nursing homes. 

One result: Several months into the pandemic, citizens in Wisconsin and across the nation remain in the dark about which nursing homes have had the largest outbreaks or have the highest death rates.

Live Updates:The latest on coronavirus in Wisconsin

Share Your Story:We want to talk to doctors, nurses and others affected by coronavirus

The Milwaukee nursing home that reported 57 deaths — Sunrise Health Services —  hung up twice on a Journal Sentinel reporter seeking comment. Sunrise is reporting four times as many deaths as any other Wisconsin nursing home, according to the federal data.

But it remains unknown whether other nursing homes have had even more deaths, since some facilities are choosing to only report data starting from May 8, when the federal government first began requiring homes to report cases. 

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services acknowledged limitations in the data.  

In a press conference call Thursday, administrator Seema Verma said the agency can only encourage — not require — nursing homes to report past data. As a result, some nursing homes have reported all past cases while others have only reported more recent cases. That means the database is not useful for comparing outbreaks across different facilities. 

“We continue to do everything we can to make sure the data we report publicly is robust,” Verma said. “Usually, these types of systems take over a year. We have done this in a matter of weeks.”

Of the Wisconsin's 359 nursing homes, 96 reported that at least one resident or staff member had COVID-19. Twenty-nine of the 359 homes reported at least one death.

The Journal Sentinel reported in April that at least eight residents at Milwaukee’s Allis Care Center had died in a span of less than three weeks. But the facility reported to the federal government just five cases and no deaths.

Lauren Ashley German, a spokesperson for Allis Care Center, said in a statement that figures only include cases and deaths since May 8. Allis Care Center currently has no active COVID-19 cases, German said. 

At Lutheran Home in Wauwatosa, administrator Carey Bartlett said the federal numbers were too high. According to the database, the home, as of May 24, was reporting 37 residents with lab-confirmed coronavirus, 41 with suspected coronavirus and five deaths. 

“I can assure you that’s not correct,” Bartlett said, promising to provide correct figures as soon as possible.

The federal data does offer some insight in a broad sense: Nursing homes reported roughly 95,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and 32,000 coronavirus-related deaths —  meaning that nursing home residents and staff make up at least 29% of the U.S. coronavirus-related deaths.

Rachel Werner, the executive director of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, called the data “a step towards accountability,” despite being flawed.  

“Even if the numbers aren’t exactly right, I think that for trust to be regained within the nursing home sector, there needs to be data like this available,” said Werner, who is studying the effect of coronavirus on nursing homes. “I wish it had happened much sooner.” 

John Sauer, president of LeadingAge Wisconsin, a trade group for long-term care facilities, said the presence of COVID-19 in a nursing home is “not necessarily a reflection on the quality of care.” 

“In fact, it may be reflective of the actions taken by the facility to conduct testing and to work aggressively to identify if the virus is coming into the facility and making sure that’s reported and acted upon,” Sauer said. 

Sauer said he felt “mixed” about the U.S. government’s response to coronavirus in nursing homes, stating that federal infection control specialists had not cooperated closely with state officials. He also called CMS’ latest directive, which ramps up fines against nursing homes with poor infection control, punitive rather than collaborative. 

Verma, the CMS administrator, said the agency had noticed a correlation between low-performing homes and the likelihood of large coronavirus outbreaks. She also denied that the agency had not done enough to combat COVID-19, saying it had issued clear infection control guidelines to nursing homes. 

“We’ve made sure that we worked with the nursing homes, we met with them, we continue to meet with them on a daily basis,” Verma said. “The idea of finger-pointing and blaming the federal government is absolutely ridiculous.”

Daphne Chen and Dana Brandt are Journal Sentinel reporters. Ignacio Calderon is a freelance writer based in Chicago.