Embracing end-of-life choices: A journey with Grandma
By
Steven Littlehale
Feb 02, 2024
At the beginning of the year, my grandmother found herself in an acute-care hospital, addressing blood clots in her legs and lungs. Having just recovered from COVID-19 at the age of 100, uncertainty loomed...
The federal Medicaid bait and switch
By
Stephen A. Moses
Nov 06, 2023
It was supposed to work like this. When people need long-term care, they pay privately until they’re impoverished. Then and only then Medicaid helps. To avoid that outcome, people were urged to save...
How government prevaricates about long-term care
By
Stephen A. Moses
Feb 23, 2024
Most federal officials and the analysts who advise them are progressives. They prefer public over private sector solutions for most social problems. Sometimes progressives bend the truth to tip public...
Fallout from clearinghouse attack continues to mushroom
By
Kimberly Marselas
Mar 13, 2024
It seemed improbable the first time someone told me the fallout from the cyberattack on the Change Healthcare platform might last for weeks, or for months even.
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...
From talk to action: Moving forward with nursing home quality improvement
By
Isaac Longobardi
Alice Bonner
Jasmine Travers, Ph.D., R.N.,
Aug 30, 2023
This May, the Senate Special Committee on Aging released a report on the shortcomings of nursing home oversight in the U.S. “Uninspected and Neglected” found that nearly one-third of nursing homes...
Knitting a team
By
Gary Tetz
Apr 18, 2024
I can still remember the clicking of needles and the feeling of chunky strands of cotton passing silently between my fingers. It was early in my elementary school epoch, and we tiny people sat cross-legged...
The importance of designing thoughtful spaces for older adults with sensory disabilities
By
Tu-Anh Bui Johnson
Ron Franks
Jan 17, 2024
Designing inclusive and accessible healthcare spaces can be a challenging experience, especially when architects and planners must heed guidelines that don’t always comprehensively address the needs...
What’s old isn’t working. What’s new is funding accountability and care outcomes.
By
Zach Shamberg
Feb 21, 2024
In 2024, Pennsylvania’s long-term care continuum, including nearly 700 nursing homes across the state, finds itself at a true crossroads of accountability and care outcomes. We’re two years removed...
Better together
By
Gary Tetz
Nov 30, 2023
An hour or so before the siren in our long-term care factory blasted the official start of the work day, and feeling a heightened level of job-related stress, I strolled into a colleague’s office uninvited...