New workplace COVID safety rules add protection and reporting requirements
By
Kimberly Marselas
Diane Eastabrook
Jun 11, 2021
Fifteen months after the start of the pandemic, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration on Thursday issued an emergency temporary standard designed to protect healthcare workers — specifically...
Fed’s booster OK too late? Nursing home loses 8 to coronavirus outbreak this fall
By
Alicia Lasek
Nov 17, 2021
A Connecticut nursing home has weathered a facility-wide COVID-19 outbreak that has sickened 89 residents and staff. Booster shots were not yet authorized when the first cases appeared, the operator reports.
After the train
By
Gary Tetz
Jul 08, 2021
There’s a hopeful phrase we started hearing a lot from long-term care leaders, residents and staff when the vaccines first arrived—“a light at the end of the tunnel.” Invariably some wise-guy or...
Dehydration plagues nursing home residents with COVID in facility study
By
Alicia Lasek
Sep 16, 2021
Clinically significant dehydration is very common among residents with COVID-19 — especially those with dementia or delirium, investigators found. Care providers should be ready with IV fluids and a...
Functional impairment from COVID-19 may persist long after ICU discharge, studies suggest
By
Alicia Lasek
Jul 21, 2021
Certain physical and mental health problems persist for years in some hospitalized survivors of acute respiratory diseases, suggesting that disability may be permanent for some severely ill COVID-19 patients...
COVID-19 variant fuels outbreak among nursing home residents, vaccinated or not
By
Kimberly Marselas
Mar 19, 2021
A previously unidentified variant of COVID-19 has infected both vaccinated and unvaccinated residents of a Kentucky nursing home, making clear that providers must remain vigilant about exposure even after...
New COVID-19 test kits promised as LTC operators contend with shortages, slow PCR results
By
Alicia Lasek
Feb 03, 2022
Five million Celltion brand rapid tests will be shipped over a five-week period to facilities as they contend with testing supply shortages and slow lab turnaround times.
Parkinson: Vaccinate all long-term care by March and slash coronavirus mortality 40 percent
By
Alicia Lasek
Dec 08, 2020
A one-month delay “could result in more than 20,000 of our residents losing their lives when a vaccine could have saved them,” AHCA / NCAL leader Mark Parkinson said Monday.
Senior living community logs 21 breakthrough cases after being COVID-free for 15 months
By
Kimberly Bonvissuto
May 25, 2021
Riverview Retirement Community in Spokane, WA, has a 98% COVID vaccination rate among residents, but an outbreak has occurred among the vaccinated. Despite varied symptoms, cases so far have not been severe,...
Physicians propose new way to manage a COVID outbreak in long-term care settings
By
Alicia Lasek
Apr 15, 2021
A 200-bed nursing home in Chicago was the recipient of an enhanced clinical management approach that contributed to relatively low mortality rates during an outbreak among high-risk residents, the doctors...