CMS to Add Weekend Staffing and Staff Turnover Data to Care Compare and Five-Star

Posted on January 13, 2022 by Jonathan Lips

On Jan. 7, CMS posted QSO-22-08-NH stating that it will publish additional nursing home staffing data to the public-facing Care Compare website beginning this month:

• Data on the level of weekend R.N. staffing and total nurse staffing (e.g., R.N., LPN, and CNA), reported in terms of the average number of R.N. and total nurse hours worked per resident per day on weekends; and
• Turnover data, as shown by the percent of nurse staff that left the facility over the last year, the percent of total nurse staff that has left the facility over the last year, and the number of administrators that have left the facility over the previous year.

In addition to posting this data for the information of consumers, in July 2022, CMS will also add the measure of total nurse staffing on weekends and the three turnover data elements listed above to the staffing domain of the Nursing Home Five Star Quality Rating System.

The technical specifications for weekend staffing and staff turnover measures will be included in the Five Star Rating System Technical Users’ Guide on Jan. 14.

Relating to turnover, CMS notes that if there is a change in an employee identifier (which may occur if a facility changes its payroll or time-keeping system, for example), it is viewed the same as an employee ending their work at the facility, which would artificially increase the level of staff turnover. To avoid this, it is critical to link old and new identifiers together, and the memorandum provides instructions for doing so.

Finally, CMS will also begin posting employee-level staffing data in the PBJ section of data.cms.gov on Jan. 26 to support additional research by all interested stakeholders.

As CMS implements these changes, we will work with the LeadingAge team to provide additional analysis for members.