NY is in the media again for its failure to report COVID deaths in nursing homes. Although you might not think this story is about performance measures, it is. We know that Gov. Cuomo wanted to ensure there were enough hospital beds available. He publicized his solution was to admit new or returning COVID patients back to nursing homes. In the process, he seems to have had a problem with counting. Further, the actual numbers of nursing home deaths were, indeed, underreported, perhaps for political reasons according to the media.
NY shows us some important lessons about performance measurement.1. If performance measures are to be helpful, neutrality can't be violated.
2. Create
clearly defined definitions. You can't count what you haven't defined. It raises the question of why it is so much of a concern that deaths be reported in two categories, nursing homes and hospitals. Perhaps, it is because we underfund our nursing homes through Medicaid, Medicare.
3. Beware of double counting. Who should report deaths? When is it a nursing home death and when is it a hospital death? What about those dying at home after release from a hospital, nursing home, or those who never were in a hospital or nursing home?
4. Determine the reporting chain: the state health
dept should have been releasing the report.
5. Update data as new information
comes in. Data are not static. You may be aware that unemployment figures are updated for a number of months after they are reported to the media.
What Gov Cuomo forgot is that the reason for
reporting COVID hospitalizations or deaths or any other data on the pandemic is
to learn. What can we do better? That's the goal of performance measurement.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/04/nyregion/cuomo-nursing-home-deaths.html
