Linda Searing of The Washington Post wrote the following: Every 40 seconds, on average, someone in the United States has a stroke — amounting to 795,000 people a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most strokes, 80 percent or more, occur when blood flow to the brain is blocked by a clot. Known as an ischemic stroke, it results in brain cells not getting needed oxygen and nutrients, which causes the cells to start dying within minutes. The other main type of stroke, hemorrhagic stroke, occurs when a blood vessel in the brain leaks or bursts, with the flo ..read more

Nursing home residents and workers may be among the first to receive a coronavirus vaccine, depending on what a federal committee decides. A preliminary plan reveals that critical medical and national security officials would receive any approved vaccines first, followed by other essential workers and those considered at high risk, such as the elderly and people with underlying conditions. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and an advisory committee of outside health experts currently are working on a priority ranking for upcoming vaccines. The committee, which has been d ..read more

Oregon’s Supreme Court ruled that the $500,000 cap on such damages under state law violated the constitutional guarantee of access to a remedy in the courts. “In enacting the damages cap (in 1987), the Legislature left defendants’ common-law duty of care intact, but deprived injured plaintiffs of the right to recover damages assessed for breach of that duty,” Chief Justice Martha Walters concluded for the court majority of five. A man who lost his left leg after a garbage truck struck him in March 2015 will now get a chance to argue for an award of noneconomic damages exceeding $500,000.  ..read more

The Covid-19 pandemic has energized calls for a drastic solution: closing nursing facilities altogether. This year, Covid-19 has killed around one in every 35 nursing home residents in the United States—over 50,000 people. More than 1000 nursing facility staff members have also died from the disease. Even in the best of times, the industry struggles with quality care because of short-staffing, poor infection control, and abuse and neglect. “Why do we have these facilities where people are not receiving proper care?” said Susan Dooha, the executive director of the Center for Independence o ..read more

After COVID-19 has prevented loved ones from seeing their family members. Families are pleading with lawmakers in South Carolina, Connecticut, Ohio and other states to allow cameras to see loved ones. The visitation bans are necessary evils but they have negative effects. There is renewed interest in legislation that would allow families to put remote cameras inside the facilities to help see how loved ones are doing. About a dozen states already have laws or regulations in place allowing residents and their families to install video cameras, subject to certain rules. The cameras allow fa ..read more

McKnight’s had an interesting article on what can be learned from the nursing home industry’s response to the coronavirus including increasing communication through online webinars where the staff can answer questions. Communicating effectively with staff also has been key. “From bolstering communications to supporting staff to stepping in to help residents in the absence of visitors, many providers around the country have used the pandemic not to merely maintain operations, but to improve them.” “It’s really created a comfort to families that they have a live stream with the facility,” h ..read more

The nursing home industry are seeing steep drops in occupancy since the start of the pandemic.  Experts do not expect those numbers to rebound any time soon. Weekly occupancy data trends from the federal government’s National Healthcare Safety Network’s database revealed median occupancy rates for skilled nursing providers have fallen as low as 75% in each of the three most recently reported weeks, according to CLA. “For facilities that lost existing occupancy due to a COVID-19 outbreak, when coupled with a reduced incoming stream of residents, skilled nursing leaders expect it may be 18 ..read more

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Altarum’s Center for Value in Health Care detailed the spending decline in nursing homes this year in a new report. Spending for nursing home care dropped 7.2% from April to May despite other healthcare sectors showing signs of recovery amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Analysts said they expect a gradual decline through at least the end of the year. Overall, nursing home care spending is down 12.7% from February. The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has the skilled nursing industry in a challenging state right now after new data revealed occupancy at SNFs dropped to 78.9 ..read more

The L.A. Times reported that nursing homes continue to violate federal law by “dumping” residents. Los Angeles prosecutors accuse a Lakeview Terrace skilled nursing facility of illegally “dumping” old and disabled residents onto the street and into homes that are not equipped to care for them in order to increase profits amid the coronavirus epidemic. The “sustained” and “intentional” misconduct by the facility comes as nursing homes have an incentive to dump long-term residents to make room for COVID-19 patients, for whom they are paid much more. Under Medicare’s new guidelines nursing h ..read more