Years of high employee turnover and understaffing at the nation’s nursing homes could undermine efforts to implement infection control measures designed to fight the spread of the new coronavirus.
Wide-ranging new guidance from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services updated on March 13, issued in response to the virus, calls for nursing home staff to screen and restrict most non-essential visitors, review and revise patient transportation procedures, increase checks for possible respiratory infections, and increase communications with residents’ families as in-person visitations are curtailed.
The “new guidance will not require more resources or additional employees” even though the regulations ...