Nikki Lansford  - Coronavirus

Kansas releases staff vaccine rates at long-term care facilities — here’s how to view JoCo data

A new online dashboard details vaccination rates of staffs at long-term care facilities in Kansas. The state dashboard comes as the Biden administration gets set to order staffers within all federally licensed nursing homes nationwide to be vaccinated. Above, a Johnson County assisted living facility resident receives a COVID-19 vaccine in January. File image.

Just one out of 38 federally licensed long-term care facilities in Johnson County have reached the state’s goal of vaccinating at least 90% of their workers, according to a new online dashboard unveiled by the state late last week.

The Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services (KDADS) and Kansas Department for Health and Environment (KDHE) worked together to create the new Kansas Long-Term Care Facility Staff Vaccination Coverage dashboard.

The dashboard, the state says, is an attempt to make it easier for the public to track COVID-19 vaccination rates among health care workers in long-term care facilities, which were hit hard by the first wave of the pandemic last year.

On average, according to the dashboard, 62.2% of Johnson County employees who work in these nursing homes and long-term care facilities are vaccinated. That’s nearly the exact same as the national average, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Most of the facilities in Johnson County have vaccination rates of at least 50%. To see a full list, click here.

The only facility from the state’s list reported to have reached the state’s 90% goal is Infinity Park Post-Acute and Rehabilitation Center, located on 103rd Street in Overland Park.

The most vaccinated facilities in Johnson County

According to the state’s new dashboard, here are the long-term care facilities with the highest staff vaccination rates:

Federal vaccine requirements in the works

The release of the dashboard comes as the Biden administration is crafting new federal regulations aimed at requiring long-term care facility staff be vaccinated against COVID-19.

The new regulation would affect more than 15,000 Medicare and Medicaid-particpating nursing homes nationwide, which employ approximately 1.6 million workers and serve approximately 1.3 million long-term care residents.

President Biden announced the impending rule change earlier this month. However, the announcement did not provide details related to deadlines for the completion of the vaccinations for nursing home staff.

“The dashboard provides Kansas an important local tool to share CMS vaccination data among health care workers in this setting with the public,” KDADS Secretary Laura Howard said in a statement.

Statewide trends

The Kansas dashboard includes both a map view and a table view of CMS-affiliated long-term care facilities.

The map view version of the dashboard categorizes federally licensed long-term care facilities into four categories based on their staffs’ vaccination rates:

  • Below 50%
  • 50-69%
  • 70-90%
  • Above 90%

The table view shows a list of all federally licensed facilities and their healthcare personnel vaccination rates, which can be viewed by county.

The data was last updated on Friday, Aug. 27, according to the state.

Statewide, as of that date, 58.1% of current staff at federally licensed long-term care facilities in Kansas are fully vaccinated. Additionally, the state says 86.7% of current long-term care residents in Kansas have been vaccinated.

“We will continue to work closely with our partners at the CDC, long-term care associations, unions and other stakeholders to advocate policies that keep residents and staff safe,” CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure said in a news release.

The information for the Kansas dashboard is set to be updated by KDHE every Friday by 12:30 p.m.

Hi! I'm Nikki, and I cover the city of Overland Park.

I grew up in southern Overland Park and graduated from Olathe East before going on to earn a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri. At Mizzou, I worked as a reporter and editor at the Columbia Missourian. Prior to joining the Post, I had also done work for the Northeast News, PolitiFact Missouri and Kaiser Health News.

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