End of COVID emergency to usher in health system change

BY RACHANA PRADHAN KAISER HEALTH NEWS

e Biden administration’s decision to end the COVID-19 public health emergency in May will institute sweeping changes across the health care system that go far beyond many people having to pay more for COVID tests.

In response to the pandemic, the federal government in 2020 suspended many of its rules on how care is delivered. at transformed essentially every corner of American health care — from hospitals and nursing homes to public health and treatment for people recovering from addiction.

Now, as the government prepares to reverse some of those steps, here’s a glimpse at ways patients will be a ected: e end of the emergency means nursing homes will have to meet higher standards for training workers.

Advocates for nursing home residents are eager to see the old, tougher training requirements reinstated, but the industry says that move could worsen sta ng shortages plaguing facilities nationwide.

In the early days of the pandemic, to help nursing homes function under the virus’s onslaught, the federal government relaxed training requirements. e Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services instituted a national policy saying nursing homes needn’t follow regulations requiring nurse aides to undergo at least 75 hours of state-approved training. Normally, a nursing home couldn’t employ aides for more than four months unless they met those require- ments.

Last year, CMS decided the relaxed training rules would no longer apply nationwide, but states and facilities could ask for permission to be held to the lower standards. As of March, 17 states had such exemptions, according to CMS — Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Jersey,

New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, and Washington — as did 356 individual nursing homes in Arizona, California, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Washington, D.C.

Nurse aides often provide the most direct and labor-intensive care for residents, including bathing and other hygiene-related tasks, feeding, monitoring vital signs, and keeping rooms clean.

Research has shown that nursing homes with sta ng instability maintain a lower quality of care.

Advocates for nursing home residents are pleased the training exceptions will end but fear that the quality of care could nevertheless deteriorate. at’s because CMS has signaled that, after the looser standards expire, some of the hours that nurse aides logged during the pandemic could count toward their 75 hours of required training. On-the-job experience, however, is not necessarily a sound substitute for the training workers missed, advocates argue.

Adequate training of aides is crucial so “they know what they’re doing before they provide care, for their own good as well as for the residents,” said Toby Edelman, a senior policy attorney for the Center

BY CORINNE WESTEMAN CWESTEMAN@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Je com 911 launches app for non-emergency services e Je com 911 app is now available on Apple and Google Play stores.

Je com 911, the county’s emergency communications agency, has launched a free phone app to provide residents and visitors access to nonemergency public safety resources. It also allows users to sign up for LookoutAlert emergency noti cations and report illegal reworks activity with the push of a button.

Executive Director Je Street stated that his agency wants to provide citizens “the best and most e cient response to requests,” and believed the app and the Je com911.org website would accomplish those goals. e agency currently averages about 2,000 emergency and nonemergency calls a day, totaling about 800,000 annually.

In an April 3 press release, Streeter described how the app allows users to report non-emergency incidents, such as reporting code violations or inquiring about welfare check requests, without calling a traditional phone line or speaking to a dispatcher.

Instead, users can ll out a form on the app with their name, contact information, date and time of the incident, and brief description. Google Maps provides the location through the Je com 911 app. Once submit- ted, users will receive con rmation that the message has been received and appropriate public safety resources have been assigned.

Other features include:

•Immediate updates through push noti cations;

•A “ reworks” button to report illegal reworks activity closer to Independence Day; and e rst stage of the project will be daytime work to complete erosion control, widening and ADA curb ramps. e second stage kicks o in June with nighttime milling and paving operations along with guardrail updates. Finally, the third stage in late summer will switch back to daytime work to complete signage, striping and rumble strips. e entire project is expected to be complete by October.

•A sign-up for LookoutAlert emergency noti cations.

Je com 911, which is based in Lakewood, is celebrating its fth anniversary this month. It started as a consolidation of eight separate law, re and EMS dispatch agencies, and now provides communication services for 24 agencies and more than 600,000 residents.

For more information, visit jeffcom911.org.

CDOT begins six-month project along Highway 93 is month, the Colorado Department of Transportation kicks o a six-month project along Highway 93 between Golden and the west Arvada area.

Crews will repave the highway and make safety improvements along a 3.1-mile stretch between U.S. Highway 6 and 58th Avenue, CDOT and the City of Golden con rmed in a recent press release.