
Public Health Officials Quickly Reverse New COVID-19 Reporting Method for Nursing Homes After Outcry from Families
On Friday, May 22, officials from the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) introduced a new COVID-19 reporting system in hopes to curb new COVID-19 outbreaks. But the new method was quickly dismissed after backlash was received from long-term care advocates and family members of residents who say they need more consistent information on facilities to decide whether it is safe for their loved ones. The new reporting system was only to involve data on long-term care facilities with at least one new case in the past 28 days versus providing an overall risk measurement for all facilities in Illinois.
IDPH then decided to continue with original reporting methods that include logging all homes with cases on the IDPH website, including those that are not currently experiencing an outbreak. The Illinois Department of Health (IDPH) has a map of the state’s long-term care facilities in Illinois with cases of COVID-19 among residents and staff on its website. The numbers are provisional, and the list is updated weekly to show lab-confirmed cases and cases meeting the Centers for Disease Control and Infection (CDC) outbreak case definition. Visit the IDPH website here and scroll down to locate the county in which the facility you are looking.