East-side Indy nursing home tops statewide list of resident deaths from COVID-19

A total of 38 residents of an east-side Indianapolis nursing home have died from COVID-19 over the course of the pandemic, making it the single largest facility for deaths from the novel coronavirus, Indiana health officials disclosed Wednesday.

Harrison Terrace, 1924 Wellesley Blvd., topped the list of 756 long-term-care facilities reporting deaths and infections to the Indiana State Department of Health.

Harrison Terrace is owned by Health and Hospital Corp. of Marion County and is managed by American Senior Communities. Officials at the 110-bed facility or American Senior Communities could not be immediately reached for comment.

Three other facilities around the state have experienced at least 30 deaths.

A total of 1,390 residents have died statewide from COVID-19, with more than 43 long-term-care facilities seeing 10 or more residents die from the disease.

The state health department released a spreadsheet Wednesday evening that named all facilities that have reported information, along with the number of deaths and infections to residents and staff members at each.

The disclosure came after the state spent months refusing to provide facility-specific COVID-19 nursing home data to the general public or media.

Federal regulations require nursing homes to inform residents and their families of new COVID-19 cases, as well as local and state health departments and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In May, the state began requiring the facilities to provide daily updates of COVID-19 cases to residents and approved family or designated representatives.

The state has been releasing collective numbers for all facilities on a weekly basis, but not facility-specific data.

On July 1, the health department reversed course and said it would begin providing numbers on individual facilities. As part of that process, all long-term-care facilities were supposed to submit data to the state that detailed the number of positive cases and deaths in staff members and residents from the beginning of the pandemic. That data was due to the state July 14.

About 83% of those facilities complied by the deadline. The state is working with the others to retrieve their information, but compiled what it has received so far and released it Wednesday.

The deaths and positive cases reported in the new information are higher than previously reported.

The spreadsheet shows that a total of 5,867 residents of nursing homes in Indiana had been infected with COVID-19 through July 14, compared with a previously reported number of 5,833 through July 20. At the top of the list is Greenwood Healthcare Center, owned by suburban Cincinnati-based CommuniCare, with 192 residents infected.

The new numbers show more than 2,500 staffers at long-term-care facilities have tested positive. The leader is Bethany Pointe Health Campus in Anderson with 67 staff infections. The facility, owned by Louisville-based Trilogy Health Services, also had 33 residents die and 83 residents infected.

The overall new total number of 1,390 resident deaths is 128 deaths higher than the state previously reported. That number represents 53% of the state’s total number of COVID-19 deaths.

Eighty-three facilities across Indiana saw five or fewer residents die from COVID-19. Around the state, 12 staffers of long-term-care facilities have died. The spreadsheet doesn’t break the staff deaths out by facility. Officials said facility-specific data on staff deaths will not be made public for privacy reasons, because there are too few staff deaths.

The list of long-term-care facilities includes sites from across state, some independent and some owned by large, out-of-state chains. The spreadsheet does not include addresses or counties of the long-term-care facilities, making it difficult to make geographic comparisons.

Other facilities with a large number of residential deaths from COVID-19 include Greenwood Meadows (35 deaths) North Woods Village (33), Diversicare of Providence (31), Dyer Nursing and Rehabilitation Center (24), Homewood Health Campus (24), Brownsburg Meadows Assisted Living (22), Northwest Manor Healthcare Center (21) and Saint Anthony-Crown Point (21).

State officials said the change in public reporting comes after a couple of the largest associations that represent long-term-care facilities and the AARP, which advocates for residents at those facilities, expressed support for more transparency.