As COVID carnage may cool, expect the heat on nursing homes to rise
By
James M. Berklan
May 19, 2022
You can have big trouble at the doorstep and not be able to do anything about it if you’re not paying close enough attention.
The killer hiding on the porch
By
Gary Tetz
May 19, 2022
I’m not easily surprised these days, because…everything. But I just stumbled across an astonishing bit of data.
Every breath you take
By
Gary Tetz
May 05, 2022
As pandemic testing becomes more sophisticated, a creepy song from the ’80s takes on new and ominous relevance. “Every breath you take I’ll be watching you,” warned The Police, and now that an...
Question, blame, repeat: The all-too predictable COVID cycle
By
Kimberly Marselas
Feb 08, 2022
Will there be six more weeks of hand-wringing when it comes to placing political blame for early COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes? It’s all part of the COVID cycle.
The exhaustion epidemic
By
Eleanor Feldman Barbera, Ph.D.
Feb 08, 2022
I was tempted to listen to the STAT News event, “The exhaustion epidemic: Examining the COVID-19 burnout crisis in health care,” while lying prone on the couch. Instead, I took notes and considered...
Maintaining your COVID-19 library of materials
By
Jacquelyn Smith Clarke
Feb 07, 2022
As the pandemic progresses, we have become used to the constant upending of what we thought we once knew. From PPE guidance to testing and vaccines, the amount of information and how quickly it changes...
Begin what? I begin.
By
Gary Tetz
Jan 27, 2022
As I sit here at 2 a.m. eating a big bowl of unnecessary cereal, driven from bed by work-related stress and the need to speedily write a column for a distinguished publication named McKnight’s, it doesn’t...
Long-term care success post-pandemic depends on MSO partnerships
By
Aaron Hellman
Jan 11, 2022
The numbers are staggering. Ninety-seven percent of nursing homes have lost revenue during the COVID-19 pandemic. Seventy-two percent report they will not be able to sustain operations for more than...
Back to before census
By
Steven Littlehale
Dec 10, 2021
One of my favorite lyrics from the musical “Ragtime” is “We can never go back to before.” The character Mother sings about no longer being a slave to societal expectations; she is confident, moving...
Can you hear them now?
By
James M. Berklan
Dec 10, 2021
Researchers brought us to us directly this week: The longer that nursing home staff members keep COVID-19 vaccination numbers low, the more people they’re going to see unnecessarily die because of it.