Last year, as the pandemic raged in New York City and sirens filled the air, a group of young travel nurses arrived to assist weary long-term care teams. They took over nursing stations that had been depleted...
Vaccine mandates are legal, but not without their own risks
By
Norris Cunningham
Angela Rinehart
Apr 19, 2021
With the federal Pharmacy Partnership for Long-Term Care Program now complete, responsibility for COVID-19 vaccinations of new residents and staff has shifted to the long-term care facilities themselves. ...
Governance-by-anecdote is alive in Washington, D.C.
By
Brendan Williams
Sep 26, 2022
In a press release warning of “Dire Conditions at For-Profit Nursing Home Chains in 2020,” the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis cited care problems at roughly a dozen nursing homes out...
Lawmakers must address nursing home workforce crisis to ensure quality care
By
George Linial
Mar 08, 2021
Before COVID-19, Texas nursing homes reported the worst staffing shortages in the nation. Texas projected we will be 60,000 nurses short by 2030, and that demand in nursing homes would double between 2015...
COVID-19 may still be in your buildings, but PHE waivers are ending
By
Angela Rinehart
Mar 08, 2023
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has confirmed that the waivers initiated during the public health emergency related to the COVID-19 pandemic will be ending on May 11, 2023. Most prominently,...
Every breath you take
By
Gary Tetz
May 05, 2022
As pandemic testing becomes more sophisticated, a creepy song from the ’80s takes on new and ominous relevance. “Every breath you take I’ll be watching you,” warned The Police, and now that an...
The exhaustion epidemic
By
Eleanor Feldman Barbera, Ph.D.
Feb 08, 2022
I was tempted to listen to the STAT News event, “The exhaustion epidemic: Examining the COVID-19 burnout crisis in health care,” while lying prone on the couch. Instead, I took notes and considered...
Pinpointing LTC enforcement trends as COVID-19 continues
By
Lauren F. Schoeberl
Apr 05, 2021
The COVID-19 pandemic has left an indelible mark on long-term care and skilled-nursing facilities. As COVID-19 cases continue to fall, regulatory and criminal enforcement agencies are now digesting...
Maintaining your COVID-19 library of materials
By
Jacquelyn Smith Clarke
Feb 07, 2022
As the pandemic progresses, we have become used to the constant upending of what we thought we once knew. From PPE guidance to testing and vaccines, the amount of information and how quickly it changes...
Back to before census
By
Steven Littlehale
Dec 10, 2021
One of my favorite lyrics from the musical “Ragtime” is “We can never go back to before.” The character Mother sings about no longer being a slave to societal expectations; she is confident, moving...