Provider IDs elder care facilities with COVID-19 patients, but Florida still won’t

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The chief executive officer for Pruitt Health, an owner of assisted-living facilities and nursing homes, said one of the first things his company did at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic was open up a 24-hour emergency operations call center for residents and their families.

The call center was soon inundated with questions, CEO Neil Pruitt said. Families wanted to know what was going on and whether there were outbreaks of COVID-19 where their loved ones live.

What Pruitt Health did next is something families have been calling on health officials nationwide to do and something the Florida Department of Health has so far resisted doing: the company published the names of its facilities with outbreaks and detailed how many positive cases were in each facility.

RELATED: Questions surround Clay County senior living facility with COVID-19 case

“There are no patient names, there is no information or aggregate,” Pruitt told the News4Jax I-TEAM. “We don’t say if they are male or female. We just list how many people are in the building, how many people have been tested, how many tested positive. Other facilities need to know, if they share staff, if there’s been any contact. So, data is really the key to fighting this virus.”

Residents of elder care facilities in Florida have been dying for weeks, but Wednesday marked the first time the state disclosed the number of people tied to long-term care facilities who died from the virus in each county. As of Thursday morning, that total number stood at 126.

Since March 21, the numbers ballooned from 19 people sick in long-term care facilities across the state to nearly 1,400 cases among facilities’ residents and staff. The state has published how many cases are in each county but still has not released the names of facilities with outbreaks and deaths.

Some facilities, like Jacksonville senior-living communities Camellia at Deerwood and Taylor Manor, and Clay County senior facility Heartland Healthcare at Orange Park, have confirmed having at least one or more cases of COVID-19. Like the state, these facilities haven’t released case and death totals.

Macclenny Nursing & Rehab Center in Baker County has reported multiple cases, as has Life Care Center of Hilliard in nearby Nassau County, which has confirmed three positives among two residents and one staffer.

At least two families have confirmed their loved ones, who were residents of Camellia at Deerwood, have died from COVID-19 complications.

Gailya Stewart’s brother lives at Heartland Healthcare of Orange Park. Her mother got a call that her brother tested positive, but Stewart says management would not disclose where he got it or if he was rooming with or had other contact with a known positive case.

“We are not getting the full picture at all. So, we can only rely on the info that’s given and that’s not a good thing because we are not able to check for ourselves,” Stewart told News4Jax.

There are currently 61 cases of COVID-19 among residents or staff at long-term care facilities in Clay County. The number of cases doubled in one weekend with 30 more cases in early April, but families have been left in the dark as to which facilities were responsible for the surge in cases.

Steve Watrel, a nursing home abuse attorney with Coker Law in Jacksonville, said the health care privacy law commonly known as HIPAA does not prevent states from releasing the names of providers with outbreaks of novel coronavirus.

“It’s not protected,” Watrel told News4Jax. “Basically, what HIPAA protects is information related to the individual’s name. It’s identifying information that would identify that individual. But if you de-identify the information that you can take off the individual names. This is stuff that is not protected by HIPAA.”

“If your loved one is in a facility with 20 cases, you know, I would be concerned,” he added. “Are they following infection protocols? Do they have the right equipment? And if not, I would want to remove my resident.”

The nonprofit advocacy group Families for Better Care tweeted that Pruitt Health’s decision to disclose which of its facilities are experiencing COVID-19 outbreaks should be the “death knell to the argument that privacy laws are hindering provider transparency.”

News4Jax filed public records requests asking for the names of providers with cases of COVID-19, the number of cases at each facility and inspection reports tied to outbreaks. We have yet to receive an answer as to whether our request will be granted.

We also asked the Governor’s Office and Agency for Health Care Administration, which regulates these facilities, if they plan to provide those records. This story will be updated with their responses.