July 19th COVID-19 Update
New updates pertaining to the COVID-19 emergency continue to be announced by both the state and federal government on a regular basis. The latest developments for providers of long-term/post-acute care (LTPAC) and senior services are reviewed below.
As a reminder, LeadingAge NY continues to convene weekly webinars on Mondays at 11 a.m. to address emerging questions on COVID-19. A recording of our most recent webinar, held on July 18th, is available here, and a list of the items shared by LeadingAge NY staff in the webinar chat can be accessed here. If you have questions for next week’s update or would like the access information, please contact Jeff Diamond.
Nursing Home Updates
Accessing Community Transmission Rates in Table Form
Members seeking to access COVID-19 Community Transmission Rates used for health care purposes (i.e., routine staff testing) can do so on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data site. The site provides a table listing the transmission rate (high, substantial, moderate, or low) for each county in the U.S. for any date back to January 2021. Setting filters for your state and county, then bookmarking the site, makes accessing the data quicker and less susceptible to interruption than accessing the data using the map on the CDC COVID-19 Tracker web page. Click here to access the site. To ensure that the filters remain in place when a bookmark is applied, it is important to click on the “Try it Now” button above the data to display the filter options BELOW the data. Once the filters appear below the data, set filters for the state (spell out “New York”), your county name (e.g., “Albany County”), and date range if desired. Once done, bookmark the page. Following these steps should ensure that your bookmark will lead to the filtered data set.
CDC Issues Updated Guidance for Enhanced Barrier Precautions Against MDROs for Nursing Homes
On the July 13th Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) National Nursing Home Stakeholder Call, there was a presentation on the updated CDC enhanced barrier precautions (EBP) guidance for multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs) for nursing homes. Click here for more information on the guidance.