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...
Making the case for real-time location services in long-term care
By
Polina Braunstein
Mar 04, 2021
Long-term care communities have both a pressing duty and a powerful self-interest to efficiently trace the contacts of anyone with COVID-19 within their community. Yet contact tracing is notoriously painstaking...
Volunteer staffing initiative supports COVID antibody infusions in long-term care
By
Alicia Lasek
Mar 04, 2021
A coalition representing LTC facilities has announced a new initiative to connect LTC operators to Medical Reserve Corps volunteers for help in administering monoclonal antibody infusions to residents...
With mental health, healthcare workers may get worse before they’re truly better
By
Kimberly Marselas
Mar 03, 2021
As the saying goes, it’s often darkest just before dawn. But as the sun rises on a new era of COVID-19 — one in which cases and deaths are down and nursing homes seem on the precipice of some return...
Transforming nursing homes into healthy living spaces
By
Mary Fox
Feb 25, 2021
With the COVID-19 pandemic exposing the urgent need of nursing homes to do all they can to limit the spread of communicable illnesses, leadership and staff priorities lie in protecting resident health...
Behavioral telemedicine can improve geriatric mental health
By
Sherie L. Friedrich, PsyD
Feb 02, 2021
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, skilled-nursing facilities have focused – rightly so – almost entirely on infection control and maintaining the health and safety of residents and staff....
Makers of newer vaccines tout advantages as trial results and approvals announced
By
Alicia Lasek
Feb 01, 2021
Two drugmakers say their vaccines, which include J&J’s one-dose candidate, are effective against new coronavirus variants, while AstraZeneca’s vaccine is now approved for adults across the...
New ‘weapon in our arsenal’: Antibody drug cuts COVID risk by 80 percent in LTC residents
By
Alicia Lasek
Jan 22, 2021
Staff and residents who received Eli Lilly’s monoclonal antibody therapy were less likely to contract symptomatic COVID-19 than placebo groups in a late-stage trial. Industry advocates are hailing...
It’s time for full transparency
By
Michael Wasserman
Jan 13, 2021
I threw down the gauntlet for the nursing home industry to focus on clinical care two years ago. I warned that in the spring of 2020, providers would “start to hurt because the cost of caring...
Skilled care, mental health focus needed to decrease hospitalizations
By
Gayle Morris
Jan 11, 2021
Preventing hospitalizations is as much a sign of good health in older adults as it is a way to maintain it. The burden of infection control, preventing skin breakdown, pneumonia — and the myriad other...