DENVER — Promoting a return to normalcy where pandemic conditions allow, a top Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services official said that nursing homes will not return to stringent isolation policies used during COVID-19’s early days.
Evan Shulman, director of the CMS Division of Nursing Homes, told attendees at the LeadingAge 2022 Annual Meeting that recent revisions to resident rights guidance aim to prevent isolation and its potential clinical and cognitive consequences.
“If this ever happens again, we will not go back to a visitation restriction setting like we had previously,” Shulman said. “We have to be able to do better than that. When you’re working on your emergency preparedness plans, don’t write a plan that says how you’re going to look at [limiting] visitation if there’s an infectious disease outbreak. Write a plan that describes how you’re going to ensure visitation can still occur.”
Shulman also attempted to clear up lingering confusion about new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention infection control guidance and encouraged uptake of bivalent COVID boosters.
While nursing home cases had fallen to 7,000 to 8,000 weekly, public health officials were anticipating a possible bump in cases following a similar trend in Europe.
“I don’t think we should get too complacent,” Shulman said.
From the November 2022 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News
