By Lisa Watts
A new report presents feedback about an executive order allowing assisted living communities in Massachusetts to provide limited skilled nursing services during the pandemic.
For years, Massachusetts law stipulated that nurses working in assisted living communities could not provide basic health services, such as administering injections, dressing simple wounds, and applying ointments and drops. Instead, residents and their families had to either provide that care themselves, hire skilled nurses to come to the assisted living residence, or move the resident to a nursing home.
The COVID-19 pandemic shined a spotlight on this restriction. At the height of the pandemic, bringing family members or nurses into assisted living communities put those nurses, residents and their families, and other staff at risk. In response to that risk, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker issued an executive order in April 2020 allowing residents the option to receive needed care from assisted living nurses. Efforts are now underway to make the change permanent.
A new report from the LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston and Collective Insight explores how assisted living residents, family caregivers, and nurses viewed the executive order. According to Provision of Skilled Nursing Care by Assisted Living Residences: Stakeholder Views on the COVID-19 Experience, stakeholders reported that the executive order resulted in perceived:
- Improvements in the coordination and timeliness of care.
- Reductions in financial and emotional burdens for residents and their families because it delayed moves to nursing homes.
Read more about the report at the Gerontology Institute Blog.