COVID-19 Refresher: Guidance for Long-Term Care Settings at Your Fingertips
(Aug. 6, 2024) With COVID-19 cases ebbing and flowing in health care settings, long-term care providers may be unsure of the current COVID-19 guidance and where to find it. The following are key COVID-19 guidance documents for long-term care settings:
Health Care Settings (e.g., Nursing Homes, Home Health Agencies, Adult Day Health Care (ADHC) Programs, Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) Centers)
- Interim Infection Prevention and Control Recommendations for Healthcare Personnel During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Provides the most comprehensive guidance on COVID-19 infection prevention for health care settings, including recommendations concerning source control, isolation, testing, environmental controls, and outbreak response.
- Interim Guidance for Managing Healthcare Personnel with SARS-CoV-2 Infection or Exposure to SARS-CoV-2: Addresses work restrictions for personnel infected with COVID-19.
- Strategies to Mitigate Healthcare Personnel Staffing Shortages: Provides recommendations for contingency and crisis staffing strategies during outbreaks and periods of workforce shortages.
- Clinical Care of COVID-19: Provides a compilation of clinical care resources for professionals to inform the diagnosis, treatment, and management of COVID-19, including for special populations.
Nursing Homes
- Testing and Management Considerations for Nursing Home Residents with Acute Respiratory Illness Symptoms when SARS-CoV-2 and Influenza Viruses are Co-circulating: Includes recommendations for testing, placement, and clinical care of nursing home residents when COVID-19 and flu viruses are co-circulating.
- Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Nursing Home Visitation – COVID-19 (QSO-20-39-NH, Revised May 8, 2023): Describes the practices that nursing homes must follow to support visitation, while reducing the risks of COVID-19 transmission.
- CMS Interim Final Rule – COVID-19 Vaccine Immunization Requirements for Residents and Staff (QSO-21-19-NH): Outlines the federal regulatory requirements to offer the COVID-19 vaccine to nursing home residents and staff.
Adult Care Facilities (ACFs)
In March 2024, the Department of Health (DOH) issued a health advisory referencing updated Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendations regarding the managing of respiratory virus guidance for the general public to mitigate the risk of transmission of COVID-19 and other common respiratory viral illnesses such as influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Since the time of the issuance of that advisory, the CDC recommendations have been updated. LeadingAge NY was able to confirm with DOH’s Bureau of Communicable Disease Control that ACF and assisted living providers should follow the new CDC community guidance in the updated recommendations on when to stay home and when to return to normal activities after respiratory viral illnesses, for staff and residents. The Bureau also pointed to the Respiratory Viruses and Older Adults CDC guidance. However, DOH subsequently clarified that staff employed by a home care agency who are working in those settings should follow the health care settings guidance (see above section titled Health Care Settings (e.g., Nursing Homes, Home Health Agencies, Adult Day Health Care (ADHC) Programs, Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) Centers).
Nursing homes and ACFs are reminded that they are required by State regulation to offer and facilitate access to the COVID-19 vaccine for all residents and staff who consent to be vaccinated. More information is available here.
Nursing homes and ACFs may also want to take advantage of free resources made available through the NY Medical Directors Association COVID-19 Resource Project. The resources include outbreak management, treatment, surveillance, and other useful tools.
Contact: Karen Lipson, klipson@leadingageny.org