Valentine’s week for our family has also been mid-winter break for our kiddos. It’s a slow down after the holidays before the rush of spring. One of those special weeks yearly when there is no school,...
Whose life is it anyway?
By
Jean Wendland Porter
Sep 21, 2023
My family is full of therapists, and most of us work in skilled nursing. My sister, an experienced speech language pathologist, called to commiserate about one of her patients who had difficulty swallowing. ...
Fair Housing Act implications for CCRCs
By
Kevin Cezat
Jan 29, 2024
As a physical therapist who has worked in and visited countless skilled nursing facilities and continuing care retirement communities, I have become painfully aware of how federal and state regulations...
Staffing for skilled nutrition support
By
Tracy Blazer
Aug 14, 2023
It’s not news that staffing shortages are rampant at all levels in senior care. Many registered dietitians working in long-term care are spread thin, working at multiple facilities to provide even the...
Smart care, wise choices: Navigating AI integration in SNFs
By
Amy Hester
Jan 04, 2024
The rapid progress of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is set to reshape various healthcare sectors, with high expectations that AI will deliver on the promise of unlocking patient data for personalized medicine. ...
Nutritional interventions: Reducing hospital readmissions among skilled nursing residents
By
Phyllis Famularo
Oct 18, 2023
In recent years, many skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) have experienced a shift in focus toward shorter-term, higher-acuity, and more medically complex residents. These older adults typically have a higher...
Fasten your seatbelts: It MIGHT be a bumpy ride
By
Steven Littlehale
Oct 13, 2023
It’s been a flurry of activity leading up to the implementation of the “new MDS.” For months our industry has been doing what we do best — rising to the occasion. Countless MDS training sessions,...
Chronic staffing shortages and the use of technology in nursing homes
By
David Chess, MD
Joseph Ouslander, MD
Nov 21, 2023
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly 240,000 nursing home employees (or about 15%) have left the industry. According to a survey conducted by the American Health Care Association/National Center...
Falling by the wayside
By
Steven Levenson
Oct 24, 2023
This month’s column invokes several previous columns, one about medications and the other about knowing if we know what we don’t know. A recent medical journal article concluded that falls in...
A waste of time? Hardly
By
John O'Connor
May 10, 2024
Some might think it unnecessary or perhaps even unfair to honor women for the exceptional work they do in this field. To that, I have a simple question: What rock have you been living under?