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A Simple Fall Prevention Strategy Comes to Light

Reducing the number of falls in long term care facilities is a goal for everyone. Current strategies to reduce falls typically include complex, multicomponent interventions requiring significant resources, staff time, and resident education. To be sure, these measures help mitigate the risk and reduce the number of falls at nursing homes and senior care facilities; but there is one novel approach that has been theorized over the last decade that has been recently validated through research and come to light.

New Bivalent Booster Handout

Find out the What’s, Why’s, When’s and How’s of the bivalent booster shot in this handout from AHCA/NCAL.

https://www.ahcancal.org/News-and-Communications/Documents/GetVaccinated/GETVAX-bivalent-handout.pdf

Gero Nurse Prep will be at the AHCA/NCAL Convention!

We are exhibiting at the AHCA/NCAL Convention & Expo, October 10 – 11, 2022, at the Music City Center in Nashville. Come visit us at booth 516 and find out how Gero Nurse Prep can help you demonstrate gerontological nursing competency.

Want to know more now? Visit our website at https://www.geronurseprep.com/

Creating a Path to Emergency Preparedness

“Death Toll in Kentucky Floods Rises to 28 as Area Braces for More Rain.” This headline from late July is all too common. Crises—natural disasters, active shooter situations, the pandemic, power grid issues, and more—are increasingly becoming the norm. While long term care facilities must have disaster preparedness plans, it’s time to revisit these and make them flexible enough to address whatever situation comes your way.

Provider shares ‘telewellness playbook’ to address resident mental health

As resident mental health and well-being top the list of challenges for affordable senior housing providers, one operator is sharing its playbook on a successful telewellness program.

Davis Park, vice president of the Front Porch Center for Innovation and Wellbeing, shared the success of the organization’s technology-based behavioral health program on Wednesday during a LeadingAge membership call.

CDC Program Expands Free COVID-19 Testing to Assisted Living, SNFs, and ICFs

Skilled Nursing Facilities, intermediate care facilities (ICFs) and assisted living centers can access free COVID-19 testing for staff and residents through December 31, 2022. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Operation Expanded Testing (OpET) program expanded access to free testing nationwide to now include skilled nursing facilities, ICFs and assisted living communities, which previously targeted schools, shelters, and correctional facilities.

CDC Updates Infection Prevention and Control of Monkeypox in Health Care Settings

The CDC updated its guidance for Infection Prevention and Control of Monkeypox in health care settings. Recommendations were added on how to monitor exposed patients and when they should be isolated. In addition, it addresses:

How to assess the risk of healthcare personnel (HCP) with monkeypox exposures;
How to monitor HCP; and
When to apply work restrictions.

The CDC also updated the risk assessment table for HCP to reflect the recommended PPE use based on risk level of exposure.

Information about human-to-human transmission of monkeypox virus is described in a How it Spreads guide.

Innovative Technology Doesn’t Have to Be Out of Reach

Robotics, intuitive software and devices, and innovations that can improve care and staffing are popping up all the time. However, budgets and funding for such technology are scant. While you may feel like a kid with empty pockets outside of a candy store, it’s important to stay on top of technology trends, and there are some innovative ways to bring them into your facilities.

From robots that can help with medication pass to devices that take vitals and send the information to physicians and other team members, many innovations can free staff from mundane tasks and the administrative/paperwork activities that weigh them down.

Infection Prevention & Control in the Long-Term Care Setting: Cleaning and Disinfection

Brought to you by NETEC (National Emerging Special Pathogens Training and Education Center) this free resource will provide all staff in long-term care settings the information to help them understand and perform the steps required to clean and disinfect properly.

Visit the NETEC RESOURCE LIBRARY for more on this and other important information. https://repository.netecweb.org/items/show/1699

High blood pressure plus COVID doubles risk of hospital stay.

Even after three COVID-19 vaccine doses, high blood pressure more than doubles the risk for hospitalization with an omicron variant infection.

That’s according to a new study of 912 patients from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. The researchers analyzed healthsystem data for patients who became infected after receiving three shots. Of the participants, 145 — or nearly 16% — were hospitalized with COVID-19.