The Covid-19 pandemic has been a huge wake-up call to the healthcare system and it has exposed many inadequacies that had existed all along. A series of studies and interviews with experts in and outside the industry are painting a mixed picture of nursing homes’ efforts to protect vulnerable patients and workers from the virus.
As of December 2022, fewer than one in five nursing home residents infected with Covid had received any antiviral treatment, despite medical guidelines to the contrary. This is just one of the many failures that experts, such as Brian McGarry, a health economist at the University of Rochester, and David Grabowski, a health care policy researcher at Harvard Medical School, are unearthing as they review the performance of nursing homes during the pandemic. Together, the two have given the healthcare system a D grade overall for its pandemic performance. Moving forward, reforms are needed in order to better protect nursing home residents and staff from the next virus.
Read more in this article by Paula Span of the New York Times: How Nursing Homes Failed to Protect Residents From Covid
Elder law attorney, Terry Garrett, CELA, is a member of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys and is an Approved Guardianship Attorney. She assists people in elder law, estate and special needs planning, guardianship and settling estates. She graduated with honors from Cornell University. She was on the Dean’s List at Wharton Business School. She earned her J.D. at Columbia Law School, receiving the Parker Award and a Mellon Fellowship.
