NEW JERSEY – Residents and staff members of long-term care facilities have been hit the hardest during the COVID-19 pandemic.
That’s why weeks ago Gov. Phil Murphy called for a team of experts to look at ways to improve the quality, safety and resiliency of the long-term care system. On Wednesday, the team released its report during the governor’s daily press conference.
“One of the greatest challenges we have faced throughout this pandemic has been the spread of COVID-19 in our long-term care facilities,” said Murphy. “This virus has had a tremendous impact and taken a significant toll on both residents and staff members. New Jersey is far from alone in this grim reality.”
The team was led by 30-year health policy expert Cindy Mann and former deputy commissioner at the centers for Medicare and Medicaid services Carol Raphael. Their recommendations outline how facilities can move forward and reopen for new residents and visitors, and how they can best address mitigation and protection, said Murphy. The team conducted over 50 interviews to put the report together.
“COVID-19 exacerbated longstanding, underlying systemic issues affecting nursing home care in New Jersey,” Murphy said, reading from the report.
There are four core recommendations outlined in the report, the first being to strengthen the emergency response capacity. It suggests establishing a new long-term care emergency operations center, which would be a “central point of command” specifically for public health response for these facilities, Murphy said. It also calls for a forward-looking COVID-19 testing plan and stronger resident and family communications.
Next, the report suggests stabilizing facilities and bolstering their workforce, Murphy said. That means ensuring staff members have access to paid sick leave, higher wages, minimum staff ratios for direct care and medical loss ratios to ensure payments are used for patient care “and not for lining owners’ pockets,” he added.
Increasing transparency and accountability is another major highlight, calling for new procedures to regulate and monitor facility owners, improving oversight and increasing penalties for those who fail to comply. Lastly, it calls for an overall more resilient and higher quality system. The goal is to require facilities to maintain infection control preventionists to better support current surveillance efforts.
“That’s a common sense call given that approximately one-third of the New Jersey nursing homes surveyed in 2017 were cited for an infection prevention and control deficiency,” said Murphy.
As of Wednesday, there have been a total of 162,068 positive COVID-19 cases statewide, an increase of 652 overnight. Of that number, there have been 11,880 deaths. Over a seven-day average, with cumulative data from April 11 to June 2, there have been 5,232 lab confirmed deaths at long-term care facilities from the virus. Hospitals statewide have reported a total of 2,250 hospitalizations from April 4 to June 2.
But new hospitalizations and patients in the hospital, ICUs and on ventilators continue to trend downward since the peak of the virus mid-April.
“We continue to trend in the right direction on all the vital indicators,” said Murphy. “The past two weeks have been filled with many more green lights than red ones.”
That’s why this week the governor announced reopening dates for outdoor dining and nonessential in-person retail shopping, effective June 15. Restaurants and bars will have to abide by numerous safety and sanitary protocols when they do open, Murphy said. Salons and barber shops will reopen June 22, with gyms and health clubs expected to follow shortly after.
The article originally appeared in the June 4 – 10, 2020 print edition of The Two River Times.
