November 30, 2020

Community Coronavirus Disease 2019 Activity Level and Nursing Home Staff Testing for Active Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Infection in Indiana

Category: Article Summary

Topic: Clinical Characteristics and Health Care Setting

Keywords (Tags): health care setting

A study assessing the potential utility of COVID-19 community SARS-CoV-2 test positivity levels or incidence to inform testing strategies of nursing home staff in Indiana did not find a meaningful threshold to predict homes with SARS-CoV-2-positive staff. Using county-level metrics of cases per 10,000 population or positivity rates to predict detection of any infected staff within a facility resulted in areas under the curve of 0.648 and 0.649, respectively. 28% of staff members tested were certified nursing assistants, who accounted for 36.9% of all positive tests among staff. Licensed practical nurses represented 1.4% of staff and 4.7% of positive cases.

Blackburn et al. (Oct 2020). Community Coronavirus Disease 2019 Activity Level and Nursing Home Staff Testing for Active Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Infection in Indiana. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jamda.2020.10.038