Rethinking How We Approach Long-Term Care In The U.S.
Nursing homes in crisis. Is it time to rethink how they work? We talk about alternative models for nursing homes and how to build a better long-term care system in the U.S.
Guests
Katie Smith Sloan, CEO of LeadingAge, the association of nonprofit aging services, including nursing homes. (@SmithSloan)
Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst. (@JackBeattyNPR)
Howard Gleckman, senior fellow at Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center at the Urban Institute. Author of “Caring for Our Parents.” (@howard_gleckman)
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Sandy Isham, registered nurse in Kansas who pulled her mother out of a nursing home during the pandemic.
Stephanie Igoe, former administrator at the Hallworth House, a non-profit nursing home in Providence, Rhode Island that closed in August 2020.
From The Reading List
Wall Street Journal: “Covid Spurs Families to Shun Nursing Homes, a Shift That Appears Long Lasting” — “The pandemic is reshaping the way Americans care for their elderly, prompting family decisions to avoid nursing homes and keep loved ones in their own homes for rehabilitation and other care.”
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The 19th: “Most nursing homes say they won’t be able to stay open another year due to pandemic costs” — “The United States recorded its first COVID-19 death in February 2020 as the virus swept through a Washington nursing home. Within one year, the country has reported more than 136,000 coronavirus deaths linked to long-term care facilities — more than one-third of all coronavirus deaths in the country. Now, the nursing home industry faces a financial crisis.”
New York Times: “Nursing Homes, Once Hotspots, Far Outpace U.S. in Covid Declines” — “Throughout the pandemic, there has been perhaps nowhere more dangerous than a nursing home. The coronavirus has raced through some 31,000 long-term care facilities in the United States, killing more than 163,000 residents and employees and accounting for more than a third of all virus deaths since the late spring.”
Tampa Bay Times: “How to fix the nursing home crisis, now and after the pandemic” — “The COVID-19 pandemic has caused tens of thousands of deaths and more than three million infections, with predictions of many more to come. Nursing home residents have been among the most affected by the pandemic.”
This article was originally published on WBUR.org. [Copyright 2021 NPR]
