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Will the Pandemic Lead to Long-Term Care Reforms?

Expert advice on how to redesign congregate living for a post-pandemic society.

With the number of COVID-19 fatalities growing among older adults in long-term care settings—and with the spotlight trained squarely on nursing homes—a recent Next Avenue article asked a pressing question:

“Will we take advantage of the pandemic-induced upheaval in long-term care to create a better life for an aging population?”

Writer Chris Farrell suggests that now is an ideal time to reform policies, practices, and financing for long-term care settings, especially nursing homes.

“COVID-19 starkly and cruelly reveals what the elder care community has long warned: America’s long-term care system is badly frayed, poorly financed, and vastly inadequate to meet the needs and ensure a good quality of life for America’s growing population of older adults — especially lower income elders,” writes Farrell.

Farrell compiles expert advice on how to redesign congregate living for a post-pandemic society. He suggests that there is “no shortage of good blueprints” to pay for the changes, which include:

  • No more shared rooms.
  • Reconfigured living spaces to facilitate sheltering-in-place, including private balconies or patios that let residents get outdoors safely during quarantines.
  • More integration of health care services into senior care communities, including greater use of telemedicine and infectious disease control systems.
  • More investments in technology, including good broadband access and devices.
  • Bigger budgets for training managers and personal care workers so they are better able to keep infections at bay.

“(The pandemic) has shaken things up enough that reform could happen,” Robyn Stone, co-director of the LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston, told Farrell. “We have learned from this that we need highly trained people … real infection control, and a whole system of care.”

Read the full article.