1/20/21 Update: Lyngblomsten compares its COVID-19 case data with MDH records, updates some cumulative numbers

January 20, 2021

In mid-2020, the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) began listing on its website the names of long-term care facilities with a confirmed case of COVID-19 in a resident or employee in the last 28 days.  Because the Lyngblomsten Care Center has had at least one active case of the virus every week since late April 2020, it has been on MDH’s list throughout 2020.

Last Thursday, January 14, MDH released another list on its website showing all senior care facilities that have had at least one exposure to COVID-19 since March 2020.  For each facility, the list provides cumulative totals for the number of cases in care center residents and senior housing tenants, the number of cases in staff (including contract employees), and the number of deaths in residents and tenants.  This list is available here (click on “Facilities with Cases & Exposures”) and will be updated by MDH every Thursday.

We shared the news of this new MDH list with our care center residents, their families, and employees last Thursday, January 14, and then with our housing tenants and their families last Friday, January 15, as part of their weekly update.

After reviewing the list, we identified differences between our data and MDH’s data.

• As of January 14, MDH’s number of care center resident deaths was greater than what we had been reporting.
• We also noticed that our numbers of cumulative resident and employee cases were greater than what MDH reported.
• Finally, there were differences between our data and MDH’s data for the cumulative number of tenant cases and deaths for the Lyngblomsten Apartments, as well as the cumulative number of employee cases for The Heritage at Lyngblomsten.

This past week, we’ve been in conversation with officials from MDH in order to rectify our number of care center resident deaths.  Through our discussions with MDH over the past week, we’ve learned several things about how the state is tracking and reporting deaths among residents at long-term care facilities.

One item we learned is that MDH is including on its list any of our deceased residents who have COVID-19 listed somewhere on their death certificate, whether as a primary, secondary, or contributing cause of death.  From our discussions with MDH, we’ve learned that COVID-19 has been listed on some residents’ death certificates even when we’ve determined that they have recovered from the virus.  Our Nursing Administration team and Medical Director are making these recovery determinations using the latest clinical guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In addition, MDH is including in its count any of our residents who were discharged from our care center to another facility (e.g., a hospital), where they then died.  It had previously been our understanding that hospitals would report those deaths.  Going forward, we will include these individuals if/when we become informed of their deaths.

Based on this new knowledge, we have updated our cumulative number of care center resident deaths, and we shared this news with our residents, their families, and employees today (January 20).  We expect the newest MDH data (which will be released tomorrow at 11 AM on its website) to report 49 resident deaths for the Lyngblomsten Care Center, 12 more than what we reported in our 2020 Year-in-Review on January 5.  Six of these residents died in June and July, and the other 6 died in October, November, and December.  Most of these individuals had recovered (per CDC guidance) one to two weeks before they died, and one of them had recovered 18 weeks before they died.

Because we’re updating our cumulative number of care center resident deaths, we’ll also need to adjust our number of cumulative resident recoveries.  We now are reporting 101 care center resident recoveries, 12 fewer than what we previously had on record.

Going forward, our numbers likely will match what is on the MDH website but could differ depending on when MDH pulls its data.  We will continue to monitor MDH’s list and work with them to rectify any differences we identify.

We mourn the loss of each resident and tenant who died from the virus.  We’re committed to sharing updates like this with our residents, tenants, their families, employees, and the public.  As we’ve shared before, being transparent is a high priority for us because older adults and their families are putting their trust in us during this challenging time.

One final note:  This past week, we focused our attention on rectifying our cumulative number of care center resident deaths with MDH.  We’ll now be turning our attention to the other MDH cumulative numbers that don’t match what we’ve been reporting.