Summary
Summary: Authors aim to describe the association between nursing home staff turnover and the presence and scope of infection control citations. Secondary data for all U.S. nursing homes between March 31, 2017 through December 31, 2019 from Payroll-Based Journal (PBJ), Nursing Home Compare, and Long-Term Care Facts on Care in the U.S. was used for this study.
Authors estimated the association between nurse turnover and the probability of an infection control citation and the scope of the citation, while controlling for nursing home fixed effects. Their turnover measure is the percent of the facility's nursing staff hours that were provided by new staff (less than 60 days of experience in last 180 days) during the two weeks prior to the health inspection. They calculated turnover for all staff together and separately for registered nurses, licensed practical nurses (LPNs), and certified nursing assistants.
Authors linked nursing homes standard inspection surveys to 650 million shifts from the PBJ data. They excluded any nursing home with incomplete or missing staffing data. The final analytic sample included 12,550 nursing homes with 30,536 surveys.
Findings: Staff turnover was associated with an increased likelihood of an infection control citation. LPN turnover was conditionally associated with an infection control citation. Conditional on having at least an isolated citation for infection control, staff turnover was positively associated with receiving a citation coded as a “pattern.” Conditional of having at least a pattern citation, staff turnover was positively associated with receiving a widespread citation.
Turnover was positively associated with the probability of an infection control citation. Staff turnover should be considered an important factor related to the spread of infections within nursing homes.
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