Nursing home staff can now assist with booster shots, according to the White House

The White House said that facility employees can now administer shots in an effort to combat the low uptake of the most recent COVID-19 omicron booster shots in US nursing homes. This is a significant victory for many, according to one of the top caregiver activists in the country.

According to Katie Smith Sloan, president and CEO of LeadingAge, the announcement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "is truly a positive step, and a demonstration of the good that results when government and providers collaborate to reach a shared goal: keeping older adults, professional caregivers, and communities safe."

Smith promised to keep working with and exerting pressure on the CDC, the Department of Health & Human Services, and the White House "to remove impediments," as suggested by providers in their proposal for the All-Hands-On-Deck campaign to improve booster uptake.

As a tripledemic approached the nation in November, LeadingAge and the American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living gave Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra a list of recommendations to increase vaccination rates among long-term care residents.

The All Hands On Deck Campaign to Improve COVID-19 & Influenza Vaccination Rates Among Our Nation's Elders highlighted the following as one of the difficulties in implementing the law's vaccine delivery requirements:

"For both the federal and state reporting requirements, the bivalent vaccine must be administered by a registered vaccine provider. LTC pharmacies are typically used by LTC facilities for delivery, administration, and reporting. While LTC pharmacies can provide influenza vaccine on the same day as an order, they are unable to do so with the COVID-19 bivalent vaccine since they must administer the vaccination themselves or contract out the task to a different organization. Due to a paucity of pharmacists, this necessitates LTC providers scheduling clinics to administer the COVID19 bivalent vaccine, which may take weeks until the facility has enough residents to justify the pharmacy visiting.

All Hands on Deck suggested that "Waive the vaccination, administration, and reporting requirements for COVID bivalent vaccine in nursing homes and allow the LTC pharmacy to distribute the bivalent and SNF to give the vaccine as they do with the influenza vaccine" as a result.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimates that since the COVID pandemic started, about 161,000 nursing home residents have passed away from the disease. 15% of the more than 1 million deaths caused by the virus in the US since 2020 have been nursing facility residents.

According to CMS data, 47% of nursing home residents and 22% of the nursing home staff have received all of the necessary booster shots, even though 86% of nursing home residents have finished their initial vaccination series.

Resources:

how to become a legal nurse consultant

Search This Blog

Legal Nurse Consulting

Nursing home staff can now assist with booster shots, according to the White House

Resources:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ryan & Veronica's New Year's Eve Wedding