The following brief was issued by the FDA on May, 19, 2021: Making COVID-19 vaccines widely available is key to getting people vaccinated and bringing the pandemic to an end. Pfizer Inc. submitted data to the FDA to support storage of undiluted, thawed vials of its COVID-19 vaccine for up to one month at refrigerator temperatures. This change should make …
The following article was published as a letter to Health Care Providers from the FDA on October 7, 2020. The FDA recommends health care providers provide visual (written or video) step-by-step instructions, in addition to verbal instructions, to patients who, in a health care setting, are self-collecting anterior nares (nasal) samples for SARS-CoV-2 testing. Written instructions may be provided on …
CMS updated their guidance related to emergency preparedness for exercise exemptions based on a facility’s activation of their Emergency Plan. The guidance applies to the below qualified facilities: CMS recognizes many facilities are still operating under disaster/emergency conditions during the PHE, i.e., under an activated emergency plan. We are therefore providing additional guidance for inpatient providers/suppliers, consistent with the exemption …
A CMS Press Release on May 11, 2021 explained the new rule issued by CMS that is aimed at “expanding efforts to grow COVID-19 vaccine confidence and uptake amongst the nations most vulnerable”. As part of the ongoing response to address the COVID-19 pandemic, and to improve health care access and reduce the risk of severe illness and death from …
One little-discussed, long-term toll of the pandemic: Large numbers of older adults have become physically and cognitively debilitated and less able to care for themselves during 15 months of sheltering in place. No large-scale studies have documented the extent of this phenomenon however, physicians, physical therapists, and health plan leaders said the prospect of increased impairment and frailty in the …
The Joint Commission announced the launch of a new Assisted Living Community (ALC) accreditation program. The program will help assisted living organizations deliver consistent and reliable care for residents. Applications will begin to be accepted on July 1. Today more than 30,000 ALCs in the United States serve more than 80,000 residents. ALCs have been increasingly shifting from a mostly …
A recent JAMA article discusses how delirium emerged as a well-recognized complication of COVID-19, with particular importance due to its high prevalence and mortality. Unfortunately, early signs of delirium (also referred to as acute brain failure) are often “missed”. During the COVID-19 pandemic, reversible contributors to delirium must be addressed and approaches for delirium prevention and management can be built …
On March 11, 2021, President Joe Biden signed into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, which included $250 million allocated Medicare and Medicaid funding for the implementation of nursing home strike teams. AMDA – The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine sent a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services on June 11, 2021, urging …
In a recent podcast posted on NPR, the practice of mixing different kinds of COVID-19 vaccines was discussed. Typically, if you get a COVID-19 vaccine that requires two doses, you should get two of the same vaccine. Two Pfizer shots, or two Moderna shots, not one and then the other. “In the U.K. at the moment, we’re sort of calling …
Reported in a Medical Press article, a team of infectious disease modelers at Northeastern University has been answering the question “when will the pandemic be over” since January. The group has been developing a set of predictive models to project the future of the outbreak in various scenarios for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as part of …
