Many long-term care facilities have begun reporting COVID-19 data into the CDC’s NHSN Long-term Care Component. In an effort to have a more complete representation of COVID-19 data for the State of Missouri, we are asking facilities who are not yet reporting (SNF, ICF, ALF, RCF, ICF/IID) to consider reporting data through the CDC’s NHSN Module and those facilities that are currently reporting to begin sharing their data (conferring rights) with DHSS. In order to share the data you enter into the CDC’s NHSN site, you must join the “Missouri Group” within NHSN and select the option to “Confer Rights”.
Once you have completed the NHSN enrollment process and received your acceptance notification from NHSN, you can login to the NHSN site to:
- Access the COVID-19 Module within the Long-Term Care Component
- Join the Missouri Group (using the guidance below)
- Confer rights to grant the state health department access to your facility’s information.
How do I join the Missouri Group and confer rights to the department?
NHSN website provides instructions – https://www.cdc.gov/nhsn/pdfs/groups-startup/JoinGroup-current.pdf.
The document is titled: NHSN Data Sharing: Joining a Group and Accepting the Confer Rights Template.
Please use the following information to join the Missouri group:
Group ID: 20503
Use password: MHIRS29
DHSS is also encouraging facilities to report each day. This will allow more accurate and timely data that could be used for increased allocation of resources for facilities that start to see increased cases, rather than responding up to a week later when outbreaks are identified.
A Frequently Asked Questions document is now available on the NHSN LTCF COVID-19 Module website. The document was developed to answer the most common questions received from facility and group users participating in the NHSN LTCF COVID-19 Module. The questions are organized by the four COVID-19 Module pathways, as well as enrollment, groups, the CMS rule, and data entry and analysis. Additionally, at the end of the document, there are examples of how to count data for reporting.