I know it feels good to clip things off — almost anything, in fact — of an ever-present “To Do” list. Unfortunately, this often leads to targeting low-hanging fruit first.
That might be just what’s in play with this week’s meeting between Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and nursing homes’ top association leaders. Twice in two weeks, the nation’s top health official has called providers on the carpet over concerns about COVID-19 vaccination rates in nursing homes.
It wasn’t billed as a scolding session, but make no mistake, the implications were clear. And providers, while exchanging diplomatic pleasantries, were having none of it.
All sides traded niceties and said how glad they were to be working together on the problem. But if you listened really carefully, the undertones revealed some classic buck-passing and finger-pointing.
First, Becerra spoke of providers’ obligation to educate about and offer vaccination services. In best pickleball fashion, however, providers smiled and thunked that volley right back with a figurative, “Not so fast, buddy.”
Perhaps inconveniently so, providers pointed out that the nursing home population is head-and-shoulders above the general population when it comes to vaccination rates. (Just shade your eyes a little if the topic comes up about the abysmal average LTC worker vaccination rate.) And this without the ubiquitous, free, government-sponsored facility clinics of recent years.
Vaccine hesitancy a roadblock
But back to the residents. They’ve always been influenced directly by outsiders’ attitudes and actions. That’s well-documented. And they still have the ability to make their own decisions. This makes for another inconvenient truth: Vaccine hesitancy and outright resistance is the major thorn in public health officials’ side right now. It’s not clear what can be done about it, or who has much leverage.
And that gets us back to what I see as a potentially firm stalemate, and it’s not providers’ fault.
With the federal healthcare worker vaccine mandate stripped away last year, it seems overseers in Washington and Baltimore would know this better than anyone.
But as history has shown, when in doubt, and maybe in need of a few public relations points, look for some nursing home operators to shake a stick at.
The fact is, unless the administration wants to get back into the mask and vaccination mandate game, we all may be stuck with lower-than-desired vaccination rates. Just look around at your own workplace and public areas around you. A lot has changed since the harrowing early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
When it comes to increasing nursing home patient vaccination rates, it might have to be like so many other hard To Do list items. Kick it down the road for possible completion another day.
James M. Berklan is McKnight’s Long-Term Care News’ Executive Editor.
Opinions expressed in McKnight’s Long-Term Care News columns are not necessarily those of McKnight’s.
