Silos, shortages hamper transitions to long-term care, physician experts report
By
Alicia Lasek
Apr 21, 2023
Most care transitions to LTC are effective. But fragmentation of care delivery, communication issues and worker shortages are the top barriers to success, say the authors of a new survey-based report from...
Cannabis-related issues sending more seniors to the ED, study finds
By
Alicia Lasek
Jan 12, 2023
Cannabis-related ED visits for older adults shot up by a whopping 1,800% between 2005 to 2019 in California, investigators say. The state’s experience mirrors national trends.
Q&A: Are you listening? A veteran provider on fostering engagement with Black and brown staff, residents
By
Alicia Lasek
Mar 26, 2021
The pandemic has trained a spotlight on numerous healthcare disparities faced by Black and brown long-term care residents. Monica Payne, a veteran clinical manager for Omnicare, says that reflecting on...
Q&A: Clinical best practices when gauging residents’ end-of-life preferences — a POLST expert weighs...
By
Alicia Lasek
Apr 29, 2021
There’s a clear need to improve the quality of Physician’s Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment, or POLST, in nursing homes, says Susan E. Hickman, Ph.D. An expert on the subject, she spoke with...
FDA says it’s time to move away from mask reuse
By
Alicia Lasek
Apr 13, 2021
Healthcare facilities should move away from decontaminating and reusing disposable masks now that U.S. respirator supply has recovered, the agency says.
Switch to race-neutral equation would affect millions of U.S. kidney patients: study
By
Alicia Lasek
Feb 16, 2022
A highly recommended transition away from race-based measurements of kidney function resulted in new kidney disease classifications for 5.5 million patients in an analysis of 39,000, investigators say.
CDC: COVID vaccines safe during pregnancy, allaying a top concern of nursing home workers
By
Alicia Lasek
Apr 28, 2021
Pregnancy concerns are cited as one of the top reasons for vaccine hesitancy among long-term care workers, but there were no obvious signs of third trimester adverse events among pregnant women who received...
Pandemic has intensified shift away from SNFs as post-acute care destinations: study
By
Alicia Lasek
Dec 16, 2021
The decrease in discharges to SNFs could have profound implications for the future of post-acute care and may hasten a reckoning about the instability of the nation’s nursing homes, physician researchers...
Greater use of unpaid post-acute caregivers raises questions about shift to home care: study
By
Liza Berger
Dec 06, 2021
The rate of older adults receiving help with activities of daily living after hospital discharge more than tripled over the study period. Unpaid caregivers likely are providing this care, investigators...
Clinical briefs for Monday, March 14
By
Alicia Lasek
Mar 14, 2022
Medical directors can tackle staffing ‘churn’ with these strategies, experts say … Most patients screened for depression don’t receive timely follow-up, VA study finds … Three doses of mRNA vaccine...