Pandemic and the Impact on Families

Angie SzumlinskiFeatured

What a year it has been; actually, it has been almost 18 months and we are still battling the pandemic war. Honestly, did anyone predict that we would still be spreading the virus by this time in 2021? I certainly didn’t, but here we are! So, at the end of the day, what impact did this have on our seniors …

Maintaining Accurate Medication Lists

Angie SzumlinskiFeatured, Training

Accurate medication lists are difficult to maintain especially when a resident is admitted and discharged several times. It seems that each physician treating a patient has their own idea on what medications work best and which should be discontinued. At the end of the day, nurses are faced with the challenge of determining what is really current and what has …

2021 Morley Awards

Angie SzumlinskiAnnouncements, Featured

Two papers published last year in JAMA, one on sarcopenia and the other on visitors in the nursing home during the COVID-19 crisis, have won JAMDA’s 2021 Morley Award for their relevance and impact on policy and practice in post-acute and long-term care medicine. The Asian Working Group for Sarcopenia’s “2019 Consensus Update on Sarcopenia Diagnosis and Treatment” published in …

CMS Citation Disputes – Michigan Only

Angie SzumlinskiFeatured

Did you know that your Michigan facility is allowed to dispute deficiencies cited by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)? According to the Department Licensing and Regulatory Affairs website, “CMS offers providers the opportunity to dispute cited deficiencies on the CMS 2567. Submissions for dispute must be received by MPRO within 10 calendar days of receipt of the …

World Health Assembly – May 24, 2021

Angie SzumlinskiAnnouncements, Featured

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, the Director-General of The World Health Organization (WHO), addressed the World Health Assembly on May 24th and stated “the pandemic is not over, and will not be over, until virus transmission is controlled in every country. That’s because the longer the virus spreads uncontrolled, the more opportunity there is for new variants to emerge”. “So far, …

Join Gold Quality Award Recipients for Afternoon Coffee in July!

Angie SzumlinskiFeatured

A new WebEx series produced by the AHCA/NCAL Quality Award Program will be released every Thursday this July to help you decide whether applying for the National Quality Award Program is right for your facility. The series will feature past Gold Quality Award recipients as they chat for half an hour over coffee each week in preparation for the application …

Veteran Homes NHSN Reporting

Angie SzumlinskiFeatured

The NHSN Long-term Care Facility Component supports the nation’s COVID-19 response through the LTCF COVID-19 Module. Facilities eligible to report data to NHSN’s COVID-19 Module include nursing homes/skilled nursing, long-term care for the developmentally disabled, and assisted living. In response to H.R. 7105, Veterans Healthcare and Benefits Improvement Act of 2020, NHSN created a surveillance tool to enable mandated reporting …

Person-Centered Long-Term Care

Angie SzumlinskiFeatured

The Mayer-Rothschild Foundation Designation of Excellence in Person-Centered Long-Term Care Award, the first of its kind, seeks to develop a new national standard of excellence in the design, development, and implementation of residential care for older adults. In the first phase of this important project, The University of Maine Center on Aging and The Cedars are working together with an …

AHRQ Pressure Prevention

Angie SzumlinskiFeatured

This is not a new tool and was developed for hospitals however the tools may be helpful if you are currently working on developing or improving your pressure reduction, skin integrity program. Pressure ulcer prevention requires an interdisciplinary approach to care. Some parts of pressure ulcer prevention care are highly routinized, but care must also be tailored to the specific …

Neuropathic Pain

Angie SzumlinskiFeatured, Studies

MedPage Today reported on Erika A. Petersen, MD, of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock speaking at the American Association of Clinical Endocrinology’s virtual meeting in May. Dr. Petersen discussed the use of a spinal cord stimulation device for relieving diabetic neuropathy pain. “This is the largest randomized controlled trial evaluating spinal cord stimulation for refractory …