A federal watchdog agency has called on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to update regulations and “make clear” that nursing homes must include emerging infectious diseases as a risk in their emergency plans.
The Office of Inspector General issued the recommendation to CMS in a new report released Tuesday that investigated provider compliance with federal regulations for infection prevention and control emergency preparedness.
The OIG analyzed state survey agency data on its most recent standard surveys over a one-year span, between March 2019 and March 2020 . It found that of the nearly 7,000 nursing homes that were cited for infection prevention and control program deficiencies, 39 did not provide a plan of correction for the deficiencies as of March 2020.
The agency found that at least 28 had possible deficiencies — with 18 of those having more than one possible deficiency.
“We found 48 instances at 25 nursing homes of possible noncompliance with infection prevention and control requirements and 18 instances at 18 nursing homes of possible noncompliance with emergency preparedness requirements related to all-hazards risk assessments and strategies to address emerging infectious diseases,” the OIG said.
The watchdog called on CMS to “consider updating the regulation to make clear that nursing homes must include emerging infectious diseases as a risk on their facility- and community-based all-hazards risk assessments” as part of its recommendations.
CMS said it would consider this recommendation in future rule making and that it has taken considerable steps already to make this requirement clear.
