Over the past two decades, half of Pennsylvania’s nursing homes have received a fine, ban, temporary or revoked license for serious deficiencies that jeopardized the health and safety of their residents. This unique data set aggregates information from nearly 900 administrative orders, dating back to 1997, to provide a detailed look at these sanctions.
The data was culled from a Right-to-Know request to the Pennsylvania Department of Health and it includes the sanction; order date; fine amounts and type of sanction, whether administrative in nature or a health and safety deficiency.
The database also includes the following information (updated as of Sept. 30, 2016) from Nursing Home Compare: number of certified beds; participation in Medicare and/or Medicaid; and star ratings.
Because nursing homes frequently change names and owners, The Reading Eagle updated this using information from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the health department, nursing home websites and press reports about facility closures.
The data was entered manually from letters provided in a PDF format, cleaned and standardized to ensure that all entries were presented in the same format. Then, ownership information was cross-checked against facility ID numbers and addresses.
Provided in collaboration with Reading Eagle