New York Providers Offer COVID-19 Lessons on Resident Care
Patrick Connole
7/31/2020
A
recent report in JAMDA offers new expert consensus recommendations for
managing COVID-19 in skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) with a focus on addressing
screening of residents and staff, management of COVID-19 positive and presumed
positive cases, communication during an outbreak, management of admissions and
readmissions, and giving emotional support for staff.
In
“Policy Recommendations Regarding Skilled Nursing Facility Management of
COVID-19: Lessons from New York State,” the authors said, “Managing COVID-19 in
this setting is uniquely challenging because the SNF serves both as a home and
a medical facility.”
Without
periodic widespread testing of all employees and visitors entering the
facility, they observed, “It will be difficult to recognize when there is
COVID-19 in the facility prior to its spread.”
Further,
the authors said there is a real urgency for providing guidance to facilities
and practitioners.
“Older
adults have high mortality rates from COVID-19, and those in SNFs are at higher
risk because of frailty, medical conditions, and need for assistance with
activities of daily living. Research is needed into transmission patterns and
to patient factors impacting individual outcomes.”
The
executive board of the New York Medical Directors Association and the Board of
the Metropolitan Area Geriatrics Society have endorsed the consensus guidelines,
the article said.
The
authors stressed that the information in their report is based on current
knowledge and research as of May 22, 2020, and that their recommendations
shouldn’t take precedence over New York or other local Department of Health
(DOH) or U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendations.
Research
for the article came from experts at the New York University School of
Medicine, Mineola, N.Y.; University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, N.Y.;
University of Rochester Medicine Geriatrics Group Geriatric Medicine/Palliative
Care, Rochester, N.Y.; Gurwin Jewish Nursing and Rehabilitation Center,
Commack, N.Y.; and United Hebrew, New Rochelle, N.Y.
Read the complete report at https://www.jamda.com/article/S1525-8610(20)30484-9/fulltext.