The authors provide a framework for infection workups when residents present with a non-specific sign or symptom. The revised guidance also reviews the latest evidence on how best to evaluate non-localized signs of infection.
As of Oct. 15, 22% of assisted living communities in 39 states reported cases of COVID-19 among residents and staff members. Rates ranged widely, from 1.3% of communities in Iowa to 93% of Connecticut facilities.
Industry advocates say it’s time for facility operators who have not made full use of rapid antigen tests to start doing so — before nursing home deaths begin to spike again. CMS must “take to the field” to help support these efforts, one expert contends.
A multi-state study in Genesis HealthCare facilities found that more than 40% of nursing home residents with COVID-19 are asymptomatic. Facility-wide testing was more successful in detecting these lurking infections than unit-only surveys.
Weekly nursing home case counts rose in late September, corresponding with a growing number of infections in the general population, the AHCA reports. Replenished relief funding will help prevent another surge, it says.
An analysis of Minimum Data Set assessments has found that overall antibiotic use in nursing homes did not change from 2012 to 2016. There was also an increase in use where no infection was reported.
Each person who contracted the coronavirus early in the pandemic likely transmitted it to four or five others, according to a new analysis.
Harvard researchers have compiled a list of clues from front line experience to help clinicians distinguish between early COVID-19 and infections with similar symptoms.
Patients with smell and taste loss are more than 10 times more likely to have a COVID-19 infection than another virus, report researchers.
A registered nurse at the Life Care Center of Kirkland, Wash., said her sickest COVID-19 patients all had red-shadowed eyes.
