Nursing shortages, and why ‘nobody wants to work anymore’
By
Jean Wendland Porter
May 02, 2023
Everyone has been feeling the nursing shortage, and now the Biden administration has tightened staffing rules, and that order will become a harbinger of more skilled nursing facility crises and closings....
If only nursing homes were banks
By
Brendan Williams
Mar 17, 2023
I went to high school in Iowa, where 19 nursing homes closed in 2022 alone. Surely, you might think, this has prompted a federal response.It isn’t. Instead, the federal government has chosen to bail...
A crazy way to spend a healthcare fortune
By
James M. Berklan
Dec 01, 2023
I’d like to announce that the folks who run Medicare Advantage plans will be shaking in their boots soon, fearful of what authorities are going to do to them.
Lawsuit is bold reminder of states’ ownership blindspot
By
Kimberly Marselas
Dec 01, 2022
New York’s lawsuit targets the people and mechanisms that might have allowed low quality to take root. But it’s all of skilled nursing that suffers.
Are we done with COVID? Is COVID done with us?
By
Jean Wendland Porter
Jul 25, 2023
At last. I haven’t worn a mask in public in months, I’m starting to see friends again, I’m eating in restaurants again, and my new normal is the old normal. Life is good. There’s some hesitation...
Plugging in to the source
By
Gary Tetz
Dec 14, 2023
Somewhere down the road, when I walk through the front doors of your long-term care facility on my first day as a resident, I hope to move with even half the vigor 80-year-old Barry Manilow showed as he...
And the Oscar goes to … not this cockeyed production
By
James M. Berklan
Feb 16, 2023
I recently woke up in a fog to the middle of some movie where innocent villagers were being accused by the sheriff of crimes they were certain they hadn’t committed.
The red bird: A story of connection and meaning
By
Martie Moore
Dec 15, 2023
My encounters with the red bird had been limited until a week after my mother died. I was sitting on the couch, consumed with grief when it first arrived. The red bird flew to the transom and peered...
Lessons on living and dying, courtesy of the Carters
By
Kimberly Marselas
Jun 06, 2023
In the twilight of their lives, we are reminded that the Carters are a normal couple facing the very basic challenges typical of advanced age. Both are grappling with how to live out their days and where...
A Montessori approach to dementia care
By
Cameron Camp, Ph.D.
Charles de Vilmorin
Dec 21, 2022
A fundamental shift is necessary in the way we view dementia and care provided for persons living with dementia. By any objective measure, the medical approach to dementia has been a monumental failure....