Staff vaccination rates in Iowa nursing homes as low as 47%, despite deaths

Stickers and syringes holding the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine are ready for patients on Feb. 3 during a vaccination clinic at the UI Health Support Services Building in Coralville. (Liz Martin/The Gazette)

Even in Iowa nursing homes where a half-dozen residents or more have died of COVID-19, the percentage of workers who have been vaccinated is as low as 47 percent, newly disclosed records show.

Although state public health officials have said they have never collected data on the staff vaccination rates in privately run nursing homes, the federal government is now collecting that information and is reporting it to the public.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has began publishing the initial round of COVID-19 vaccination data from individual nursing homes on its COVID-19 Nursing Home Data website.

Since May 21, nursing homes throughout the country have been required by CMS to submit vaccination data for both staff and residents, although the CMS site indicates many Iowa facilities have yet to comply. However, when data from only those homes that have complied is considered and compared with data from all 50 states, Iowa has the 17th-highest rate of staff vaccinations, at 61 percent.

The states with the highest reported rate of overall staff vaccination are Vermont, California and Hawaii. The states with the lowest reported rates are Wyoming and Mississippi.

According to the CMS data, only 748 of the nation’s 15,000 nursing homes have reached the industry’s stated goal of vaccinating 75 percent of their workers. That number is expected to change once more homes begin reporting data.

CMS has said it will begin enforcing the vaccination reporting requirement on Monday, and that fines will be imposed against the facilities that fail to comply.

A sampling of vaccination rates

Although there is no data available yet for the majority of central Iowa homes, here’s a sampling of the CMS-reported vaccination rates for some of those that have reported those numbers to the federal government:

Karen Acres Care Center, 3605 Elm Dr., Urbandale: 47 percent of staff members have been vaccinated. Seven resident deaths from COVID-19 have been reported.

Azria Health Park Place, 2401 E. Eighth St., Des Moines: 53 percent of staff members have been vaccinated. Five resident deaths from COVID-19 have been reported.

Arbor Springs of West Des Moines, 7951 E.P. True Pkwy., West Des Moines: 67 percent of staff members have been vaccinated. Seven resident deaths from COVID-19 have been reported.

Westbrook Acres, 605 Garfield St., Gladbrook: 74 percent of staff members have been vaccinated. Fifteen resident deaths from COVID-19, a number equal to one-third of the total occupancy of the home at any given time, have been reported.

Regency Care Center, 815 High Rd., Norwalk: 62 percent of staff members have been vaccinated. No resident deaths from COVID-19 have been reported.
Prairie Vista Village, 2785 First Ave., Altoona: 62 percent of staff members have been vaccinated. No resident deaths from COVID-19 have been reported.

Northridge Village, 3300 George Washington Carver Ave., Ames: 68 percent of staff members have been vaccinated. Four resident deaths from COVID-19 have been reported.

The Cottages, 1742 Main St., Pella: 67 percent of staff members have been vaccinated. Eleven resident deaths from COVID-19 have been reported.

Trinity Center at Luther Park, 1555 Hull Ave., Des Moines: 68 percent of staff members have been vaccinated. Sixteen resident deaths from COVID-19 have been reported.

On With Life, 715 SW Ankeny Rd., Ankeny: 77 percent of the staff members have been vaccinated. No resident deaths from COVID-19 have been reported.

Valley View Village, 2571 Guthrie Ave., Des Moines: 63 percent of staff members have been vaccinated. One resident death from COVID-19 has been reported at the home.

Edgewater, 9295 Cascade Ave., West Des Moines: 73 percent of staff members have been vaccinated. Four resident deaths from COVID-19 have been reported.

State not keeping records on refusal rates

In March, the Iowa Capital Dispatch reported the Iowa Department of Public Health was not collecting data on vaccine refusal rates in Iowa’s 440 nursing homes. Two months earlier, the Capital Dispatch had asked the department for the information.

After a series of email exchanges, a department spokeswoman said the information being sought was not contained in “a report that currently exists,” but said she would work with her team to “pull something in.” The information was never provided.

At a news conference in March, Gov. Kim Reynolds said the overall vaccine-acceptance rate among Iowa’s nursing home workers was 60 percent. Later in that same news conference, IDPH Director Kelly Garcia said no state agencies — including the Department of Inspections and Appeals, Department of Human Services and Department of Public Health — collected that sort of information from nursing homes.

When reporters asked how the governor had determined the vaccine-acceptance rate among nursing home workers was 60 percent, Garcia said she would check.

A spokesman for the governor, Pat Garrett, said later that the information came from a partnership of Iowa’s long-term care providers and pharmacies. Asked for a copy of the data, he said it had been provided by telephone — but, when asked, he could not say precisely who had provided it, or who in the governor’s office had received it.

This article first appeared in the Iowa Capital Dispatch.