MUST READ POLICY PIECES: This week, the New Yorker published “The Plague Year” by Lawrence Wright, a tour-de-force piece of reporting on the nation’s pandemic response. Having read a great deal of policy-related reporting on the outbreak, I believe this
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Nursing Home Quality & Safety Earlier this month, the Coronavirus Commission for Safety and Quality in Nursing Homes issued their final report for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The task of the Commission was “to solicit lessons
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All Nursing Homes Must Test Facility Residents, Staff, others for Covid-19 A new rule was issued Tuesday by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) requiring long term care facilities to test their facility residents, staff, volunteers and individuals
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This news article is an opinion piece that challenges the idea that “better” nursing homes were less likely to be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Grabowski’s research teams concluded that the factors most predictive of a coronavirus outbreak are location
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This cross-sectional study examines associations between county prevalence data and characteristics of 3,357 skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) in 25 states (341 Genesis facilities and 3,016 non-Genesis), including 64 Genesis SNFs which underwent universal testing. 118 (35%) Genesis and 640 (21.2%)
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This article was published on June 1st, 2020 in the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association (JAMDA). A group of medical directors from several New York skilled nursing facilities (SNF) give detailed consensus policy recommendations on COVID-19 management. Key
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This European article focuses on emergency medicine palliative care guidelines for assessment and treatment of COVID-19 patients who are stable, unstable or near the end of life. 3 categories of palliative care patients were created by initial assessment (WHO early
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This article was published on July 9th, 2020 by the Journal of Advanced Nursing (JAN). It examines social distancing guidelines in long term care (LTC) facilities in Canada and the difficulties it creates as a by-product to the mental and
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]This case report details the association between hip and lower limb fractures in three elderly patients and COVID-19. It was published on 4/7/2020 out of Isfehan University of Medical Science in Iran by the Archives of Bone and Joint Surgery.
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In this opinion paper, authors focus on the role of malnutrition in the elderly and its associations with immune health and suggest treating malnutrition could aid in decreasing the effects of COVID-19. Advanced age and comorbidities are associated with impaired
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