Skilled nursing facilities work with state public health agencies to help develop and enact emergency preparedness plans that will help you avoid or overcome various disasters.
By effectively dealing with public health emergencies and other crises, SNF can reverse trends revealed by inspectors' offices. Some nursing homes are ready to respond or manage the safety of residents and staff in emergencies.
A recent OIG report found that 77% of nursing homes in high-risk areas experienced at least one challenge while responding to an emergency event. Additionally, those who report issues such as emergency infection prevention planning issues and securing beds for evacuated residents become less resilient when they stack up in nursing homes that did not report the challenges. I did.
Virginia is one of the states where local health officials curate quality collaborations with SNF and other health providers are trying to turn that around.
Since 2018, Fairfax County Health Department has held its annual Skilled Nursing Facilities Symposium to help local health professionals collaborate, share best practices and improve infection prevention and control skills. It's there.
The latest symposium took place on February 8th and attracted caregivers from SNFS and hospitals in Fairfax County, Virginia, and the cities of Fairfax and Falls Church, Virginia. Conversation topics include respiratory illness updates, antibiotic stewardship, and improving hospital SNF communication.
Health Department officials said defending appropriate responses is extremely important at all levels.
“At the local level, we are partnering with the Healthcare Coalition, which provides a unified approach to healthcare preparation,” Christopher Eddie, healthcare preparation coordinator for the Fairfax County Health Department, told McKnight on Friday. Ta. “At the community level, our health department has a dedicated program to support SNF with expert advice and training related to emergency preparation and illness prevention.”
The previous year's symposium provided sessions on new public health concerns, regulatory compliance and quality improvement initiatives.
Educate and prepare
In Michigan, the advanced nursing home quality coalition last year received a $500,000 grant from the Michigan Health Fund Fund last year.
The state is not preparing SNFs just for infectious outbreaks, coalition chair Alice Bonner also mentioned hurricanes, floods, snowstorms, cyberattacks and other risks.
“The goal is to educate and prepare nursing homes (at the time) to share that experience with other nursing homes, public health agencies and local public health agencies,” she said on McKnight on Friday. “We're building a network that increases emergency preparedness across the state.”
The association held a training session featuring natural disaster simulations in October 2024, in which each of the seven participating nursing homes walked through the first response and approached a particular event. I was able to learn.
Starting Tuesday, the coalition will hold a three-day in-person emergency preparedness response exercise, with three nursing homes working with expert trainers and leaders from Michigan's Department of Health to learn the best emergency preparedness practices .
As a former director of Nursing Facilities at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Bonner confirms that the goals behind these exercises are strengthening collaboration across the sector.
Drills are also an active way for nursing homes to remain adaptable, she said.
“You want to tell the surveyors who come to your nursing home, 'Here's our emergency preparation plan and the exercises we did in our team,'' Bonner said. “This is how we demonstrate that we are walking here. We are actually doing these exercises.”
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The good news is that according to the Virginia Whirlpool, SNF has learned a lot during the pandemic. The news that isn't all about is that there is no learning going on. Preparation plans and efforts can change over time, he reminded.
Bonner reflected those ideas, noting that symbiotic cases have faced a sharp decline since the start of the pandemic, but still exist.
Nursing facilities need to remain vigilant and proper emergency preparation plans are essential to do so, she said.
“There's RSV, there's norovirus, there's all the different types of infections,” she recalled. “It's important that people keep an eye on it, as people continue to be the problem.”
