AARP Eye Center
AARP Public Policy Institute’s Nursing Home Dashboard has tracked and analyzed COVID-19 case, death, and vaccination data since 2020. The Dashboard’s findings reveal a distressing trend among both nursing home residents and staff: not everyone is vaccinated and not everyone is “up to date” with boosters.
Two leaders in the field of nursing, recently conducted an informal online survey asking nurses how the public, their patients and their friends and families can support nurses. Distilling the responses into ten key actions, they propose that if everyone in this country did just one, we could begin to heal the heart of health care.
The COVID-19 pandemic had stark and immediate effects on home and community-based services (HCBS) and the people who received these supports.
Successful deprescribing (that is, reducing or eliminating certain drugs that may be causing harm) in the course of routine care may depend on strengthening and elevating the information that is available to consumers.
The message from recent data is clear: nursing home residents and staff need booster shots now.
There is both an opportunity and an imperative to redesign the next Scorecard. This tool has the potential to draw further attention to critical issues in LTSS exposed by the COVID-19 crisis and help states build and maintain momentum in their efforts to modernize their LTSS systems.
The Build Back Better Act that recently passed in the U.S. House of Representatives and is under consideration in the U.S. Senate includes several sections that could drive improvement in nursing home staffing and ultimately resident care and safety.
As facilities use the lessons learned to put in place policies and programs to continue delivering COVID-19 vaccines, they also should evaluate the quality and effectiveness of their influenza and pneumococcal immunization programs.
Facilities are beginning to innovate and put in place best practices to drive down the number of COVID-19 cases among residents and staff.
As the pandemic and the caregiving crisis it has prompted continue, more action is needed to protect caregivers from discrimination at work.