PBJ Nursing Home Staffing Dashboard
A free public data resource by 320 Consulting
Featured in Columbia Public Health, Positive Aging, and Aging in America News
About the PBJ Dashboard
Staffing data is a key indicator of nursing home quality, revealing how much care residents receive and what resources facilities commit. Yet most public data shows only the latest quarter, offering a narrow and incomplete view. The PBJ Dashboard stitches together nine years of federal CMS staffing files—billions of data points from payroll-based journal (PBJ) submissions—into interactive visualizations, so you can see how staffing has changed over time and bring data-driven context to what's happening inside the 15,000 nursing homes across the United States.
Who it helps
- Attorneys – identify staffing patterns and trends that may support negligence cases, regulatory violations, or quality of care claims. Access historical data to demonstrate chronic understaffing, seasonal variations, or ownership-related staffing deficiencies.
- Journalists – plug numbers and data visualizations into a nursing home investigation or ownership-focused report without wrangling raw CSVs.
- Advocates & families – see how a nursing home stacks up over time for residents and loved ones.
- Providers – use historical staffing data to identify gaps, benchmark performance, and support quality improvement efforts.
What you can explore
| View | Data you get |
|---|---|
| National / State | Nurse staffing hours per resident day (HPRD), contract staff %, census — every quarter since 2017 |
| Facility | A nursing home's quarterly staffing, contract, and census data; ratings and risk indicators |
| Ownership Group | Essential data on any chain and its facilities (e.g., Genesis → 202 facilities in 19 states, 2.3-star average) |
Under the hood
- Payroll-Based Journal (PBJ) Staffing Data – 33 quarters of daily data, aggregated for clarity
- CMS Provider Info – 5-star ratings, enforcement data, and other key indicators
- CMS Affiliated Entity – Selected quality and performance metrics for groups of nursing homes sharing common owners, officers, or entities
- CMS Citations (Premium) - Citation data and inspection reports, categorized by date, type, severity, and more.
How PBJ Data Reveals Chronic Understaffing: The Seagate Case
In September, a Brooklyn nursing home made national headlines after the violent death of an 89-year-old Holocaust survivor. Federal records point to a deeper problem: Seagate Rehabilitation and Nursing Center has been marked by chronic understaffing—one of thousands of U.S. nursing homes with similar conditions. In the 1,279 days since New York implemented a 3.50 HPRD minimum, Seagate has fallen below the threshold every single day, according to CMS Payroll-Based Journal (PBJ) data.
Seagate has not once met New York's 3.50 HPRD staffing minimum since the law went into effect April 1, 2022, according to PBJ records.
PBJ data enables this analysis by providing daily staffing records, historical context, regulatory compliance tracking, and pattern recognition—revealing systemic issues that affect resident care across thousands of facilities. Read the full analysis or explore Seagate's staffing data.
Digging deeper?
Premium – 320 Consulting offers custom reports with daily, position-level analysis and data visualizations tied to ratings, enforcement, and other critical metrics to support your casework and advocacy. Check out a sample dashboard.
Methodology
This Nursing Home Staffing Dashboard uses CMS Payroll-Based Journal (PBJ) data from 2017-2025, covering all nursing positions, including contract staff. CMS first published PBJ data in 2017. It also uses Provider Information, Affiliated Entity, and MACPAC State Staffing Standards (2022) datasets.
Staffing Categories
Total nurse staff includes: Registered Nurse (RN), RN Director of Nursing (DON), RN Admin, Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN), LPN Admin, Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA), Nurse Aide in Training, Medication Aide/Technician.
Metrics Explained
Total Nurse Hours Per Resident Day (HPRD)*: Total nurse staff hours per resident per day.
Direct Care (excl. Admin, DON): Hours per resident day for direct care staff only (RN, LPN, CNA, NAtrn, MedAide), excluding administrative and supervisory roles.
Contract Staff Percentage: Percentage of nurse staff hours provided by contract staff.
Census: Average number of residents in facility or state during the reporting period.
Ownership Change: Indicates facility ownership changed in the last 12 months.
A 2001 federal study identified 4.1 HPRD as the level linked to better outcomes for most residents. Facilities with higher-acuity residents—such as those with complex medical needs or limited mobility—generally require more staffing. Staffing levels can also vary significantly by day and shift.
Some states have their own standards (e.g., New Jersey, California, and New York each set a 3.5 HPRD minimum), though enforcement and definitions vary. Note: A federal 3.48 HPRD minimum was recently overturned by a court in 2025.
Transparency Note
The PBJ Dashboard pulls directly from CMS data and is carefully vetted for accuracy. Still, sometimes a bug sneaks into the jelly. 🪰 🥪
That could mean:
- A facility reported bad data to CMS (more common than you'd think).
- Or I made a coding error (it happens).
Either way, I want to be the first to know. If you spot something that looks off, please let me know so I can squash the bug and set things right.
Phoebe J, the PBJ nursing home data assistant
Phoebe slices through nursing home payroll-based journal (PBJ) staffing data and serves it up in plain language, whether you want the scoop on staffing levels in your state or your facility.
Try Phoebe JAbout 320 Consulting
320 Consulting is led by Eric Goldwein, MPH, a data consultant with expertise in nursing home staffing. His work on nursing home data has been featured in Columbia Public Health, the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, Positive Aging, and Aging in America News. He has presented at national conferences hosted by the National Association of Medicaid Fraud Control Units, Consumer Voice, the American Society on Aging, and the NYS Long Term Care Ombudsman Program. He previously served as policy director at the Long Term Care Community Coalition.