The health watchdog is to issue a checklist to nursing homes to ensure they have the right measures in place to deal with Covid-19.
HIQA will then follow up next week with inspections of nursing homes around the country.
Nursing and care homes account for almost 60 percent of virus related deaths.
Karina Bulter, President of the Infectious Disease Society of Ireland, explains why the disease is so prevalent in nursing homes.
"In the elderly it's not classical fever or cough as we've learned - it can be just a subtle change in the overall condition.
"There might be no fever there, and thus it can go unrecognised for a while, and in that time spread from person to person.
"That's why we've been left with these really shocking numbers."
