Covid Continues to Kill Nursing Home Residents, yet the Majority Go without the Latest Shot

After Covid-19 ravaged American nursing homes in the height of the pandemic, getting vaccinations for the vulnerable elderly was a top priority. Now nursing home residents essentially have been left on their own.

Despite the high death toll in nursing homes from Covid-19, fewer than 4 in 10 residents have gotten the most recent Covid shot, says a POLITICO article.  Covid continues to kill nursing home residents, more than 170,000 nursing home residents have died- including nearly 600 residents during the first two weeks of 2024—and the low rate of new shots among residents has left nursing homes and the Biden administration pointing fingers at one another.

Due to factors such as age and underlying conditions, nursing home residents are especially vulnerable to Covid-19. Despite the consensus among experts that elderly people need an annual Covid shot, recent vaccinations among nursing home residents has dropped to 38 percent. Considering the federal rules requiring homes to offer vaccines, the question is whether or not the low vaccination numbers come as a result of negligence amounting to nursing home malpractice.

With the termination of the public health emergency last fall, the government shifted the responsibility for buying and managing the distribution of Covid shots to nursing homes. According to POLITICO, since late December of last year, Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra has met twice with nursing home representatives to emphasize facilities’ responsibility to offer the latest shot to residents. Finding that some nursing homes show greater vaccine success than others—both North and South Dakota report over 60 percent nursing home resident vaccination, compared with just 20.1 percent of Arizona nursing home residents—the administration insists it’s possible for all nursing homes to do a better job.

Considering the vulnerability of residents and the deadliness and contagiousness of Covid-19, it is the responsibility of nursing homes to take every measure to safeguard their residents; neglecting to do so is nursing home malpractice. When nursing homes do not do their part in preventing nursing home infections and residents become seriously ill or die, nursing home malpractice has occurred and loved ones must look into a nursing home lawyer or wrongful death attorney.

In response to the administration’s insistence that facilities work harder to improve vaccine rates, nursing homes have countered that the government needs to act to address vaccine hesitancy. While Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Mandy Cohen said it was a top priority for the agency to address issues of vaccine access and hesitancy, POLITICO said others in the administration feel that vaccine promotion should come from manufacturers and nursing homes.

Your Advocate against Nursing Home Abuse, Neglect, and Wrongful Death

Attorney Brian P. Murphy is dedicated to protecting the safety and preserving the rights of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, or New Jersey nursing home residents. Your loved one living in a nursing home should not fear that their home’s negligence will result in illness or wrongful death. Attorney Brian Murphy has years of experience fighting negligent nursing homes in Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and New Jersey. As a seasoned nursing home malpractice and wrongful death attorney, he holds accountable the Philadelphia/PA or NJ nursing homes responsible for elder abuse, neglect, and other types of nursing home malpractice. Should you find yourself needing to contact a nursing home malpractice and wrongful death attorney, or if you need guidance in choosing a nursing home, call Brian Murphy today to discuss your legal options.

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Nursing Home Residents Yet to Receive Vaccine Boosters

According to a recent Philadelphia Inquirer article, tens of thousands of Pennsylvania nursing home residents are behind on their COVID-19 booster shots. While the latest bivalent booster shot was developed to better protect against the most recent and prevalent COVID strains, and while elderly nursing home residents rank among the most vulnerable to developing serious, and even deadly, symptoms with COVID, Pennsylvania nursing home resident vaccination rates rank lower than 25 other states and territories in the nation.

According to the article, federal data shows the following for Pennsylvania’s nursing home residents with respect to COVD protections:

• Percentage of Pennsylvania nursing homes where the majority of residents have not received the latest booster shot: 40
• Percentage of Pennsylvania nursing homes in which 75 percent of residents are fully current with vaccines: 30
• Number of Philadelphia nursing homes in which 75 percent of residents are fully current with vaccines: 25

According to a CNBC article, the national percentage of nursing home residents who have received an omicron booster is not much higher: fewer than 50 percent. While 86 percent of nursing home residents are fully current with primary COVID vaccines, just 47  percent of them have received all of their recommended boosters. Dr. Ashish Jha, White House Covid taskforce leader, says the majority of current COVID deaths include elderly persons who are not up to date on their vaccinations and don’t receive treatments like Paxlovid in circumstances of breakthrough infections.

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows COVID cases as rising by 65 percent in nursing homes from mid-November to early December, and then dropping by 11 percent the next week. Nursing home COVID deaths rose 25 percent nationwide. According to the Inquirer article, 200 to 300 nursing home residents nationwide have died from COVID each week since the end of October.

The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services report that, since the start of the pandemic, over 161,000 nursing home residents have succumbed to COVID. Nearly three-quarters of the nation’s COVID deaths have been among seniors aged 65 or older. With thousands of nursing home residents yet to receive vaccine boosters and an impending winter COVID wave, residents should prioritize getting booster shots to avoid another high wave of nursing home deaths.

During the height of the coronavirus pandemic, various issues amounting to nursing home malpractice—some that have plagued the industry since long before COVID—prevented nursing homes from protecting fragile nursing home residents, including the following problems:

• Staffing Shortages: Poor staff-to-resident ratios are illustrative of nursing home malpractice as staffing directly impacts a home’s ability to manage the spread of infection and disease. Nursing home staffing was low long before the pandemic, plummeted further during the pandemic, and continues to be a problem in the industry today.
• Poor Infection Prevention, Response, and Mitigation: From a lack of adequate PPE and COVID tests, to not properly isolating infected individuals, to poor pandemic hygiene and disinfection practices and contract tracing failures, nursing home infection practices during the pandemic reflected repeated instances of nursing home malpractice.
• Poor Regulation: In 2020 the federal government cut facility inspections, reduced health violation fines, and replaced certified aides with lower-trained temporary nursing assistants.
• Private-Equity Ownership: For-profit companies run 70 percent of American nursing homes, and are known to engage in acts of nursing home malpractice that have resulted in poor quality care. A New Jersey study of COVID-19 in private equity-owned nursing homes found that COVID nursing home infection rates were 30 percent higher, and COVID deaths 40 percent higher, than the state average. And the White House recently declared that residents of private equity-owned nursing facilities have a greater likelihood of experiencing nursing home malpractice and wrongful death.

Even properly implemented protective measures were insufficient to fully protect vulnerable elderly residents living in close proximity to one another during the worst months of the pandemic, says the Inquirer. Only the introduction of the vaccine in late 2020 caused death rates among nursing home residents to begin dropping. And considering the quickly waning immunity of elderly residents, boosters should be prioritized for them to prevent the risk of serious illness.

Defending Against Nursing Home Malpractice and Wrongful Death

As a nursing home malpractice and wrongful death attorney, Brian P. Murphy tirelessly fights to protect the health and safety of residents living in Pennsylvania or New Jersey nursing homes. Years of experience as a wrongful death attorney fighting negligent Philadelphia/PA and NJ nursing homes has led Brian Murphy to successfully resolve numerous nursing home malpractice cases. Should you find yourself needing to contact a nursing home malpractice and wrongful death attorney, call Brian Murphy today to discuss your legal options.

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Additional CMS Requirements to Prevent COVID Infections from Under-Vaccinated Nursing Home Staff:

According to Provider Magazine, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has compiled lists of additional precautions beyond the CDC’s Interim IPC Guidance for Nursing Homes  that facilities should take to prevent the occurrence of COVID-19 nursing home infections from unvaccinated workers. While vaccinations for nursing home workers are currently mandated, current staff members who are exempt from receiving the vaccine for medical or religious reasons, or newly-hired workers who have yet to receive both doses of the series, still pose a threat of causing COVID nursing home infections while working with the vulnerable elderly. Since putting residents at unnecessary risk for nursing home infections is tantamount to nursing home neglect, facilities would be wise to implement the most relevant precautions for  their nursing home population.

The precautions are outlined in the following CMS QSO memos: QSO-22-07-LTC, QSO-22-09-LTC, and QSO-22-11-LTC. While not every precaution outlined in the QSO memos is required, nursing homes are urged to form precautionary policies based on these memos according to residents’ vulnerability to COVID-19 nursing home infections. The following list includes a few suggested measures a nursing home might take to stave off COVID nursing home infections by unvaccinated workers:

• Allow less-vulnerable residents to be cared for by unvaccinated staff who wear N95 masks while preventing immunocompromised residents from having direct contact with unvaccinated workers
• Increase the frequency at which unvaccinated workers are tested for COVID-19 (the current testing requirements as posed by CMS and the CDC guidance , which is based on COVID transmission within the wider community, may be exceeded as a facility sees fit)
• Implement social distancing measures
• Reassign unvaccinated staff to non-patient care duties or remote work

Nursing home understaffing issues resulting from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and from the vaccine mandates that followed might pose challenges to facilities attempting to implement certain of the above precautionary measures. For example, staffing shortages might impact a nursing home’s ability to shift crucial but under-vaccinated workers into non-patient care; however, irrespective of the strain placed on staff, precautionary efforts need to be taken such as the additional CMS requirements to prevent COVID infections, or else these homes will have exposed their vulnerable residents to nursing home neglect.

Fighting for Your Loved One

Even in the aftermath of a pandemic, Pennsylvania and New Jersey nursing homes are required to meet specific health and safety requirements and to provide such care as to secure the physical, mental, and psycho/social well-being of their residents. To meet these standards, the Philadelphia/PA or NJ nursing home where your loved one lives must be equipped to avoid the poor care that amounts to nursing home neglect or abuse. This includes the prevention of nursing home infections and nursing home understaffing. Should you have concerns about a Pennsylvania or New Jersey nursing home during COVID-19, or if you suspect neglect, abuse, or fraud has occurred at the Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, or New Jersey nursing home where your loved one lives, please contact nursing home abuse attorney Brian P. Murphy to discover your legal rights and options.

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Pandemic Restrictions Relaxed for Fully Vaccinated Nursing Home Residents:

With an eye to supporting residents’ physical, mental, and emotional health, a new DOH directive signals a return to normal.

The continued decline of new COVID cases and hospitalizations and the increase in the numbers of people vaccinated has led the New Jersey Department of Health to release new guidelines for nursing homes, according to articles on nj.com and wobm.com.The new DOH directive, taking its cue from updated guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, looks to promote more normalcy in residents’ daily lives, provided they are fully vaccinated.

Generally, for those residents who have received full inoculation against COVID, communal dining and group activities can be engaged in without the need for masks or social distancing. The following outlines some of the changes that will happen as a result of the DOH directive:

• Masks—During contact among fully vaccinated persons, masks are no longer required
• Gathering Closely—Residents and visitors can opt to have close contact, including hugging, without needing to wear masks, provided they are fully vaccinated
• Communal Activity and Dining—An activity or dining that involves all fully vaccinated residents can take place without distancing or the wearing of masks
• Staff Testing—Routine COVID testing, a requirement over the past few months, will no longer be necessary for fully vaccinated staff members
• Non-Essential Personnel—The reintroduction of non-essential personnel, such as hair dressers, is permitted if facilities have safety protocols in place and if these workers are screened and wear masks
• Volunteers—Those who volunteer their time entertaining, conducting activities, and coordinating visitation may once again be admitted into facilities, provided they follow protocols

The relaxation of restrictions has been inspired by the effectiveness of vaccines, says state Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli. Referencing the NJ state database for COVID-19, the nj.com article states that currently 82% of residents and 58% of workers are fully vaccinated. Deaths are down 80% since February, and represent just under 7% of what NJ COVID deaths were in January, when a second wave of the coronavirus hit the state.

More than 8,000 NJ nursing home residents and 144 staff members died from COVID, numbers which accounted for half of the state’s coronavirus deaths. According to nj.com, there are 197 current outbreaks in the state’s facilities, a number the article attributes to stagnant vaccination rates among staff, a number of whom have demonstrated vaccine reluctance.

The pandemic restrictions relaxed for fully vaccinated nursing home residents allows interaction between vaccinated and unvaccinated residents or visitors. The DOH guidance says that, although close contact, and even touching, is permissible, both parties need to be wearing a mask.

Ensuring the Safety of Your Loved One

Determining the quality and safety of the Philadelphia/PA or NJ nursing home where your loved one lives is essential. Pennsylvania and New Jersey nursing homes are required to meet health and safety standards requirements and to ensure the physical, mental, and psycho/social well-being of their residents. Should you have concerns about the quality of care in a Pennsylvania or New Jersey nursing home, or if you suspect neglect, abuse, or fraud has occurred at the Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, or New Jersey nursing home where your loved one lives, please contact nursing home abuse attorney Brian P. Murphy to discover your legal rights and options.

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Investigation on Unvaccinated Workers and Increasing Nursing Home Cases Correspondence: 

Low vaccination rates among American nursing home workers are being linked to a recent rise in nursing home COVID cases and deaths, says an Associated Press article. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recently launched an investigation of facilities in areas of Colorado where staff vaccination rates are low and COVID numbers have spiked, leading health experts to worry that the success of COVID vaccines among the vulnerable elderly is being undermined by non-inoculated workers.

American nursing home staff vaccination rates sit at an average of 59% nationally, although in some states rates are as low as about 40%. Despite the dropping numbers of COVID infections and deaths among nursing home workers that resulted from the introduction of vaccinations back in January, recently there has been a rise in cases and deaths among workers. Since infected workers are considered a primary cause of outbreaks in long-term care facilities, concerns about protecting residents are growing, particularly as the highly contagious delta variant spreads across the nation.

Although symptoms are mild in most fully vaccinated persons who contract the delta variant, vaccinated elderly persons might be less protected against variants of the coronavirus. The concern has led some to consider the vaccination of nursing home staff a national emergency, including policy experts who are pressing the government to require vaccinations for workers. But no such move has yet been made by the Biden administration; as reluctance to vaccination remains high in certain areas of the country, the fear is that a vaccination mandate for nursing home staff might result in a host of workers quitting their jobs.

Several nursing homes in Mesa County, Colorado—an area considered to be a COVID hot spot—were part of the recent CDC investigation.  While the agency has yet to publicly release its investigation findings, a CDC slide anonymously released to the Associated Press describes fully vaccinated residents becoming infected and dying from the delta variant. In one Mesa County home experiencing outbreaks, only 58% of the staff were vaccinated.

States other than Colorado are experiencing nursing home outbreaks where staff vaccinations remain low, including in Indiana, where recently five fully-vaccinated residents became infected and one died in one facility where only 44% of workers were fully vaccinated.

According to the article,

the investigation on unvaccinated workers and increasing nursing home cases correspondence resulted in a fear of side effects and mistrust of nursing home management remaining as leading reasons behind workers’ vaccine reluctance.

Fighting to Keep Your Loved One Safe

As the pandemic persists, it is important to ensure the safety of the Philadelphia/PA or NJ nursing home where your loved one lives. At all times, Pennsylvania and New Jersey nursing homes are required to meet specific health and safety requirements and to protect the physical, mental, and psycho/social well-being of their residents. This includes ensuring adequate, quality staffing. Should you have concerns about a Pennsylvania or New Jersey nursing home during COVID-19, or if you suspect neglect, abuse, or fraud has occurred at the Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, or New Jersey nursing home where your loved one lives, please contact nursing home abuse attorney Brian P. Murphy to discover your legal rights and options.

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Nursing Home Staffing Issues May Worsen with Federal Vaccine Mandate:

Low staffing, a common cause of nursing home neglect, could increase in the wake of mandate enforcement.

As announced in a CNN article, on Jan. 13 the U.S. Supreme Court voted to uphold a federal vaccine mandate for healthcare workers employed at facilities that receive Medicaid or Medicare funding. While intended to protect the health of vulnerable citizens, the decision nevertheless could, by forcing the resignation or firing of non-vaccinated nursing home workers, escalate the ongoing worker shortage crisis that impairs nursing home care and leads to nursing home neglect.

In a 5 to 4 decision, the Supreme Court upheld the federal vaccine mandate’s final rule requiring all healthcare workers without religious or medical exemptions to be fully vaccinated. For facilities in those states that sued late last year to block the mandate, the deadline to be fully vaccinated will be March 15. The remainder state facilities must have staffs fully vaccinated by Feb. 28. Pennsylvania and New Jersey facilities are among the states that did not challenge the mandate and must meet the earlier deadline.

The penalty for a facility’s non-compliance will be the loss of Medicare and/or Medicaid funding. Striving to be compliant will put nursing homes across the nation in the position of needing to let go of those employees who are unwilling to be vaccinated or who cannot prove medical or religious exemptions to the mandate. The result, in the short term, will be the cropping up of simultaneous nursing home job vacancies—staffing shortages that could be viewed as fallout from the vaccine mandate. But nursing home staffing issues are neither a new, nor a short-term, problem.

Although nursing home staffing issues may worsen with federal vaccine mandate, long before the crisis of the coronavirus pandemic, staffing woes have plagued the nursing home industry. Whether occurring as a result of understaffing by nursing home owners to save money, or as a result of worker shortages due to low wages, low staffing is a common issue that impacts efficiency and quality of care, with troubling consequences for elderly residents: nursing home neglect.

A reduced workforce means that the job of providing sufficient care so as to avoid nursing home neglect falls to a facility’s remaining staff members. When overloaded with duties, nursing home employees cannot meet every requirement of the elderly residents in their care; as a result, residents’ needs fall through the cracks, setting the stage for nursing home neglect. Nursing home neglect resulting from low staffing reveals itself through a range of serious circumstances involving nursing home injuries, including but not limited to the following:

• Medication Errors—Overburdened staff members are prone to mistakes, and medication errors are among the more serious consequences of low staffing. Handing out the wrong medication or the improper dose of a medication can lead to such nursing home injuries as fractures, head injuries, and choking.
• Nursing Home Falls—Neglected residents, particularly those who need help in and out of bed or onto the toilet, can suffer falls that lead to a range of nursing home injuries like fractured bones and head injuries.
• Malnutrition and Dehydration—Insufficient attention paid to a resident’s nutritional or hydration needs can result in malnutrition and dehydration. Both malnutrition and dehydration are considered types of preventable nursing home injuries.
• Bedsores—Also known as pressure wounds, bedsores develop when immobile residents are left too long in a single position. If not promptly addressed, bedsores can become infected and rapidly advance into serious wounds. Bedsores are common nursing home injuries. Severe, neglected bedsores can result in death.

Thanks to the low wages currently offered to nursing home employees, nursing homes will continue to struggle to staff post-mandate vacancies, particularly while higher paying and less demanding jobs outside of nursing home care exist. Speaking in a Kaiser Health News article, Brian McGarry, a University of Rochester professor who studies long-term care, said nursing assistants “can typically find a job with better pay that is less physically and emotionally demanding. Somebody’s life and dignity is in your hands, and it’s a huge responsibility, and you are not getting paid commensurate with that responsibility.”

Fighting for Your Loved One

Ensuring adequate, quality staffing is among the measures Pennsylvania and New Jersey nursing homes should take to preserve its residents against nursing home neglect or abuse. Philadelphia/PA and NJ nursing homes are required by law to meet specific health and safety requirements and to provide such care as to secure the physical, mental, and psycho/social well-being of their residents. Should you have concerns about a Pennsylvania or New Jersey nursing home, or if you suspect neglect, abuse, or fraud has occurred at the Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, or New Jersey nursing home where your loved one lives, please contact nursing home abuse attorney Brian P. Murphy to discover your legal rights and options.

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Vaccine Mandate for Health Care Workers Blocked by Federal Judge: 

On November 30, President’ Biden’s mandate requiring hospital and nursing home workers to be fully vaccinated by Jan. 4 was blocked by a federal judge, according to a New York Times article. With his issuing of a preliminary injunction, Judge Terry A. Doughty of U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, has taken a preliminary legal step toward ending the national mandate.

“There is no question that mandating a vaccine to 10.3 million health care workers is something that should be done by Congress, not a government agency,” said Doughty. “It is not clear that even an act of Congress mandating a vaccine would be constitutional.” The judge added that the plaintiffs had an interest in preventing the loss of jobs and tax revenue that may result from the mandate.

Despite many being in favor of workers receiving COVID-19 vaccinations in order to protect residents, from the time the mandate was announced in August, nursing homes already coping with staff shortages feared the regulation would impel vaccine hesitant nursing home employees to find employment elsewhere in healthcare not covered by the mandate. But with the loss of federal Medicare and Medicaid funding on the line for facilities not in compliance with the mandate—a loss that would be crippling for most homes—many nursing homes felt they had little choice but to comply.

With this past summer’s surge of the Delta variant in nursing homes, many states and cities across the nation had set their own mandates for healthcare workers. Philadelphia’s mandate prompted a 30.3 percent increase in healthcare worker vaccinations so that, as of November, the vaccination rate among Philadelphia healthcare workers stood at 90.8 percent. The Times puts the national immunization rate for nursing home workers at 74 percent, although certain regions of the country have much lower rates.

The Biden Administration’s mandate was met with opposition by various states fearing its impact on state budgets and the potential to intensify health care worker shortages, including a lawsuit brought by Louisiana and 13 other states. Just prior to the vaccine mandate for health care workers being blocked by federal judge Doughty, a federal court in Missouri issued a similar order relating to a 10-state lawsuit against the mandate.

Responding to the court decisions, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid stated, “While we cannot comment on the litigation, CMS has remained committed to protecting the health and safety of beneficiaries and health care workers. The vaccine requirement for health care workers addresses the risk of unvaccinated health care staff to patient safety and provides stability and uniformity across the nation’s health care system.”

Fighting for Your Loved One

Ensuring adequate, quality staffing is among the measures Pennsylvania and New Jersey nursing homes should take to preserve its residents against nursing home neglect or abuse . Philadelphia/PA and NJ nursing homes are required by law to meet specific health and safety requirements and to provide such care as to secure the physical, mental, and psycho/social well-being of their residents. Should you have concerns about a Pennsylvania or New Jersey nursing home during COVID-19, or if you suspect neglect, abuse, or fraud has occurred at the Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, or New Jersey nursing home where your loved one lives, please contact nursing home abuse attorney Brian P. Murphy to discover your legal rights and options.

The post Vaccine Mandate for Health Care Workers Blocked by Federal Judge appeared first on The Law Firm of Brian P. Murphy, PC.

Mandate Gets Vaccine Results in Philadelphia Nursing Homes:

The vaccine mandate for Philadelphia healthcare workers has succeeded in prompting 46 of the city’s 47 nursing homes to ensure the full vaccination of all non-exempted staff workers, says a Nov. 6 article in The Philadelphia Inquirer. Based on a report compiled from a survey sent to Philadelphia nursing homes on Oct. 15, 90.8% of the city’s nursing home workers are now fully vaccinated, an increase of over 30% since the mandate was announced for healthcare workers three months ago. Beyond those fully vaccinated, 4.8%  of workers have received at least the first of their shots.

Despite its extremely high vaccination rates (94.8% fully vaccinated and 1.3% partially vaccinated as of Oct. 24), the Delaware Valley Veteran’s Home is listed as not having satisfied the city’s mandate. According to the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, this Northeast Philadelphia home, a 171-bed facility run by the Pennsylvania Department of Veteran’s Affairs, was considered not in compliance with the mandate only due to its failure to put into place any formal exemptions. According to the article, Philadelphia officials remain confident that the home is striving to meet the city’s requirements as quickly as possible.

The mandate gets vaccine results in Philadelphia nursing homes, aside from the religious or medically exempt. The report lists 286 Philadelphia nursing home workers as being exempt from COVID-19 vaccine requirements. The majority of these workers—230—received religious exemptions from the city, while medical exemptions accounted for the remaining 56 people. Workers with approved exemptions are able to continue working in homes, provided they wear two masks and get tested twice weekly. By contrast, those workers with unvaccinated or unknown statuses are not permitted to work until proof of vaccination is shown, says the city. As of the time of the report, 75 workers were unvaccinated, and 66 were recorded as unknown.

The question remains as to how vaccine mandates across the state and nation might impact an industry already plagued by staff shortages and high turnover. In Philadelphia, those workers listed as “no longer employed” number fewer than 200. The report does not indicate whether these workers chose to quit their job rather than receive a vaccination or were fired for not getting one.

Fighting for a Safe Environment for Your Loved One

Pennsylvania and New Jersey nursing homes are required by law to meet specific health and safety requirements and to provide such care as to secure the physical, mental, and psycho/social well-being of their residents. To meet these standards, the Philadelphia/PA or NJ nursing home where your loved one lives must be equipped to avoid the poor care that amounts to nursing home neglect or abuse [https://www.thenursinghomeattorneys.com/nursing-home-abuse-and-neglect/]. This includes ensuring adequate, quality staffing. Should you have concerns about a Pennsylvania or New Jersey nursing home during COVID-19, or if you suspect neglect, abuse, or fraud has occurred at the Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, or New Jersey nursing home where your loved one lives, please contact nursing home abuse attorney Brian P. Murphy to discover your legal rights and options.

The post Mandate Gets Vaccine Results in Philadelphia Nursing Homes appeared first on The Law Firm of Brian P. Murphy, PC.

Philadelphia to Begin Enforcing Nursing Home Vaccine Mandate:

With the deadline come and gone for employees to be vaccinated, Philadelphia will begin enforcing the vaccine mandate for nursing home workers, says a Philadelphia Inquirer article.

The Philadelphia Department of Public Health set Oct. 15 as the deadline for city hospitals, nursing homes, and higher-education institutions to ensure their employees had gotten at least their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Partially vaccinated employees need to get their second shot by Nov. 15 and must wear either an N95 mask or two regular masks and be tested regularly in the interim.  Employees who had not received even the first vaccine shot by Oct. 15 were prohibited from working after that date.

With the deadline past, the city sent out surveys to nursing homes to collect vaccination data. These surveys were required to be completed by Oct 24. Homes that fail to meet the requirements of the mandate face potential closure and fines ranging up to $2,000 per violation. Going forward, according to the Inquirer, the health department plans to conduct both scheduled and unannounced audits (both in-person and electronic) of vaccination records. Such audits could come as a result of data supplied by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or because of complaints.

The latest available data (from Oct. 3) shows the employee vaccination rate for Philadelphia’s 47 nursing homes as having climbed three percentage points from the previous week to reach 79%.  For twelve Philadelphia nursing homes, vaccination rates were under 70%. Two homes reported rates as below 50%.

The Pennsylvania Health Care Association (PHCA) recently reached out to acting Health Commissioner Cheryl Bettigole with a letter warning that complying with the mandate could mean nursing homes will need to let go of as many as 2,400 employees.

According to the Inquirer article, some facilities are gearing up for the possibility of new staff shortages. Even prior to the virus, staff turnover was a problem in the nursing-home industry, and the pandemic led to a worsening of staffing problems. Applications for positions at some facilities have fallen dramatically. Some facilities are making plans to use workers from staffing agencies if positions are left empty. No plans have been made for the city to help nursing homes with staff shortages.

President and CEO of PHCA Eric Heisler said it may take some time to get a clear idea of new staffing issues as a result of the mandate. He stated that nursing homes continue to endeavor to educate employees about the vaccine and to ensure the vaccine is easily accessible to workers.

Philadelphia to begin enforcing nursing home vaccine mandate could lead to staffing shortages which often translate to decreased quality of care within nursing homes, resulting in such instances of nursing home neglect as the following:

• Bedsores—When staffing levels drop, the repositioning of at-risk residents in their beds or chairs does not happen frequently enough, resulting in patients developing pressure ulcers.
• Nursing Home Falls—In understaffed homes, fewer staff members are available to help elderly residents move, resulting in falls from beds, wheelchairs, the toilet, and in the bath.
• Medication Errors—Overwhelmed workers in understaffed facilities can make mistakes regarding the type and amount of medication a patient requires.

Ensuring the Safety of Your Loved One

Pennsylvania and New Jersey nursing homes are at all times required to secure the physical, mental, and psycho/social well-being of their residents by meeting certain health and safety requirements and providing adequate care. To meet these standards, the Philadelphia/PA or NJ nursing home where your loved one lives must be equipped to avoid the kind of substandard care that amounts to nursing home neglect or abuse. This includes ensuring adequate, quality staffing. Should you have concerns about a Pennsylvania or New Jersey nursing home during COVID-19, or if you suspect neglect, abuse, or fraud has occurred at the Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, or New Jersey nursing home where your loved one lives, please contact nursing home abuse attorney Brian P. Murphy to discover your legal rights and options.

The post Philadelphia Poised to Begin Enforcing Nursing Home Vaccine Mandate appeared first on The Law Firm of Brian P. Murphy, PC.

Nursing Homes Fear Vaccination Mandates Will Worsen Staff Shortages

Nursing homes battling against worker shortages and high staff turnover are now worried that the recent vaccination mandate announced by the Biden administration will lead more staff to quit, says an article in USA Today. The emergency regulation announced by President Biden on August 18 saying nursing home staff must be vaccinated against COVID-19 or facilities will lose Medicare and Medicaid funding could go into effect as early as next month, and while some nursing home administrators are in favor of their employees receiving the vaccine in order to protect vulnerable elderly residents, others worry the regulation will send reluctant staff to find employment in healthcare outside of the nursing home industry not included in the mandate, such as hospitals, clinics, and home health care agencies.

Despite workers’ early eligibility for the vaccine, and in spite of the devastation wrought last year by COVID in the nation’s nursing homes, American staff vaccination rates remain between 44% and 88%, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), meaning hundreds of thousands of nursing home workers nationwide are unvaccinated. The president’s mandate comes as new nursing home outbreaks of the highly-contagious Delta variant continue to sweep through regions with low staff vaccination rates.

According to CMS, Medicaid and Medicare funding supports more than 15,000 of the nation’s nursing homes. Experts say the withdrawal of this funding would be crippling for most facilities. Even with this in mind, many nursing home administrators cannot help but to be concerned about how staff members who remain disinclined to be vaccinated might react to the new mandate.  USA Today references an Ohio long-term care company that reversed its vaccine mandate once staff members threatened to quit. Noting an Ohio facility currently unable to fill nearly 20 open positions, Ohio Health Care Association head Pete Van Runkle stated in the article that he was worried the new mandate would only worsen the staffing problem.

Nursing homes fear vaccination mandates will worsen staff shortages; staffing issues can lead to a number of problems within nursing homes that affect quality of care and often amount to nursing home abuse or neglect. Among these problems include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Bedsores – Frequent turning and other repositioning by caregivers, in conjunction with regular hygiene, nutritional, and hydration measures, is paramount in preventing bedsores, which are also known as pressure ulcers, decubitus ulcers, and pressure sores. When staffing levels drop, the required attention needed from nursing home staff by residents at risk of developing bedsores becomes difficult to give.
• Medication Errors – Workers in understaffed facilities can become overwhelmed and make mistakes regarding the type and amount of medication a patient requires.
• Nursing Home Falls – In homes where staffing is an issue, overwhelmed workers have less availability to assist elderly residents in and out of beds, wheelchairs, and the bath, or on and off the toilet. Residents left to fend for themselves are more likely to fall.

Ensuring the Safety of Your Loved One

Pennsylvania and New Jersey nursing homes are at all times required to secure the physical, mental, and psycho/social well-being of their residents by meeting certain health and safety requirements and providing adequate care. To meet these standards, the Philadelphia/PA or NJ nursing home where your loved one lives must be equipped to avoid the kind of substandard care that amounts to nursing home neglect or abuse. This includes ensuring adequate, quality staffing. Should you have concerns about a Pennsylvania or New Jersey nursing home during COVID-19, or if you suspect neglect, abuse, or fraud has occurred at the Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, or New Jersey nursing home where your loved one lives, please contact nursing home abuse attorney Brian P. Murphy to discover your legal rights and options.

The post Nursing Homes Fear Vaccination Mandates Will Worsen Staff Shortages appeared first on The Law Firm of Brian P. Murphy, PC.