Improving nursing home staffing and infection control vulnerabilities continues to be a key policy objective for the US Department of Health and Human Services, according to two officials from its Office of Inspector General.
Those vulnerabilities were highlighted during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, wrote Julie Taitsman, OIG’s chief medical officer, and Nancy Harrison, deputy regional inspector general at OIG. But while the pandemic worsened the problems nursing homes face, the long-term care sector’s problems persist — and will require collaborative action and “sweeping reforms” from providers and policymakers.
“Meaningful change to keep nursing home residents safe requires broad collaboration with partners and stakeholders across government, the nursing home sector, and the broader health care industry,” the OIG officials wrote in STAT. “The underlying problems in nursing homes must be addressed because they set the stage for the tragedies that occurred during the pandemic.”
One of those problems is low staffing — as highlighted by the most recent report in a three-part series from OIG about the effects of COVID on the country’s nursing homes.
This will certainly come as no surprise to a sector already plagued by staffing and retention issues and now preparing to meet the demands of a federal nursing home staffing mandate. The OIG officials supported the mandate for promising to increase staffing levels, but were seemingly receptive to industry concerns.
“Of course, nursing homes can increase staffing levels only when there are enough willing and qualified workers to fill positions,” they wrote. “The pandemic pushed an already struggling nursing home workforce to its limits. Sustained action is needed to build back a strong workforce that can provide quality care to nursing home residents.”
Another of the OIG reports — this one issued in early 2023 — threw a stark light on the difficulties of infection control in nursing homes. Taitsman and Harrison noted that 1,300 facilities had COVID infection rates of 75% or higher at the peak of the pandemic.
