Respirators, including N95s and elastomeric respirators, help protect healthcare workers from COVID-19 and other airborne viruses. Making sure these respirators fit the face properly is essential to maximizing their effectiveness. A new AHRQ guide defines respirator fit testing and explains why it’s important, how it works and how often nursing home staff …
The magnitude of facility-initiated discharges in nursing homes remains unknown. Many challenges exist to identifying and addressing inappropriate facility-initiated discharges, including that neither Administration for Community Living (ACL) nor Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) collect data on the number of facility-initiated discharges, and many State Ombudsmen do not …
Question: Where can I find information on the new CMS COVID-19 vaccination requirements? Answer from Denise Winzeler, BSN, RN, LNHA, DNS-CT, QCP: CMS has developed a FAQ document regarding the Interim Final Rule that answers a lot of questions regarding the 214-page document that was released on Nov. 4. CMS …
Question: We have a resident who discharged to the hospital (completed an OBRA DC Return-Anticipated). When he was ready to be discharged from the hospital, we did not have a bed available, so he discharged to a sister facility for a few days. We now have a bed available, and …
Lucian Leap just released a new book called Making Healthcare Safe. This free, downloadable book discusses ways a skilled nursing facility can implement a culture of safety by changing processes, working conditions, and communication in order to make the facility as safe as possible for both residents and staff. For …
Morning stand-up is meant to be a brief meeting (15 minutes or less) to exchange information that affects the operations of multiple departments on that given day. The information exchanged should be shared with the intent of facilitating connection among all departments and coordinating operations. Facility leaders can utilize this …
Question: Where can I find resources to help our facility prevent and manage sepsis? Answer: TMF, a Quality Improvement Organization, offers a free toolkit called the Sepsis Post-Acute Care Training Toolkit for Nursing Homes. This toolkit educates nursing home staff, residents, and families about the early identification of sepsis in …
Electronic access (PDF) to this book is free with IHI membership (also free). Leape LL. Making Healthcare Safe. Springer; 2021. Written by Lucian Leape, a pioneer of the patient safety movement, this book describes how patient safety became recognized as an important problem, the underlying science, and the efforts to implement changes. The …
Findings In this systematic review of 57 studies comprising more than 250 000 survivors of COVID-19, most sequelae included mental health, pulmonary, and neurologic disorders, which were prevalent longer than 6 months after SARS-CoV-2 exposure. JAMA Netw Open. 2021;4(10):e2128568. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.28568 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2784918
When emergency events happen, such as cardiac and respiratory arrest or an elopement, it is imperative that staff know how to respond. Nurse leadership should provide opportunities for staff to practice and perfect their response to these emergency events. This toolkit will assist nurse leaders to set up the mock …
