Thursday, July 08, 2021

8 July 2021: Michigan to Audit Accuracy of State's COVID Nursing Home Death Data

Auditor general to review Michigan's COVID-related nursing home death data

Evidence that Michigan state officials have significantly undercounted the number of COVID deaths among the state's nursing home and long term care facility residents is motivating the state's Auditor General to conduct a general audit of the state's data. Here's an excerpt from this report:

The state auditor general will conduct a review to determine the accuracy of Michigan's data pertaining to COVID-related deaths at long-term care facilities.

Michigan Auditor General Doug Ringler estimated the audit would be complete between late September and the middle of October in a letter addressed last week to Rep. Steve Johnson, R-Wayland.

"We will be working with various departments' databases to address your concerns, which will impact the timing of our work," Ringler wrote.

Ringler, who was appointed in 2014, was chosen by a majority vote of lawmakers for an eight-year term. Ringler's office is tasked with conducting "post financial and performance audits of all branches, departments, offices, boards, authorities, and other institutions," according to the office's website.

The audit was requested by Representative Johnson after Michigan Health Director Elizabeth Hertel's testified the state's COVID death data for nursing home residents was incomplete on 3 June 2021.

That hearing followed a blockbuster report indicating the full toll of COVID deaths among Michigan nursing home residents is substantially larger than the state's official figures on 28 May 2021.

Here's more background information from the timeline:

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer's COVID nursing home scandal is remarkably similar to New York Governor Cuomo's nursing home scandals. Both implemented directives forcing nursing homes to admit COVID patients being dumped from hospitals to free up their bed space. Both have reported figures of the number of COVID deaths of nursing home residents that substantially understated the full extent of COVID deaths among those residents.

Where they differ is in the nature of the undercounts. Governor Cuomo and his administration compiled data on the COVID deaths of nursing home residents and covered up its full extent, a scandal that is now the subject of federal and state criminal investigations.

Governor Whitmer and her administration appear to have undercounted the full extent of COVID deaths among Michigan nursing home residents through what we would describe as official negligence. Michigan public health officials either never collected the data in the first place or failed to commit resources to match the data they did collect with other sources that could have traced COVID deaths that took place in hospitals back to the nursing homes and other care facilities where the patients resided and where they were most likely infected.

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