Analysis of traumatic event emergency department visits among care home residents aged 65 + years in Southern Jutland, Denmark: implications for comprehensive care and subsequent hospital admissions - a register-based cohort study.

BACKGROUND: Care home residents aged 65 + years frequently experience acute health issues, leading to emergency department visits. Falls and associated injuries are a common cause of these visits and falls in a geriatric population can be a symptom of an incipient acute illness such as infection. Conversely, the traumatic event can cause illnesses to arise due to consequences of the fall, e.g. delirium or constipation due to opioid use. We hypothesised that a traumatic event treat-and-release emergency department visit serves as an indicator for an upcoming acute hospital admission due to non-trauma-related conditions. METHODS: We studied emergency department visits for traumatic events among all care home residents aged 65+ (n = 2601) living in Southern Jutland, Denmark, from 2018 to 2019. Data from highly valid national registers were used to evaluate diagnoses, mortality, and admissions. Cox Regression was used to analyse the hazard of acute hospital admission following an emergency department treat-and-release visit. RESULTS: Most visits occurred on weekdays and during day shifts, and 72.0% were treated and released within 6 h. Contusions, open wounds, and femur fractures were the most common discharge diagnoses, accounting for 53.3% of all cases (n = 703). In-hospital mortality was 2.3%, and 30-day mortality was 10.4%. Among treat-and-release visits (n = 506), 25% resulted in a new hospital referral within 30 days, hereof 13% treat-and-release revisits (duration ≤ 6 h), and 12% hospital admissions (duration > 6 h). Over half (56%) of new hospital referrals were initiated within the first seven days of discharge. Almost three-fourths of subsequent admissions were caused by various diseases. The hazard ratio of acute hospital admissions was 2.20 (95% CI: 1.52-3.17) among residents with a recent traumatic event treat-and-release visit compared to residents with no recent traumatic event treat-and-release visit. CONCLUSION: Traumatic event treat-and-release visits among care home residents serve as an indicator for subsequent hospitalisations, highlighting the need for a more comprehensive evaluation, even for minor injuries. These findings have implications for improving care, continuity, and resource utilisation. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Not relevant.

COVID-19 outbreaks in nursing homes: A strong link with the coronavirus spread in the surrounding population, France, March to July 2020.

BACKGROUND: Worldwide, COVID-19 outbreaks in nursing homes have often been sudden and massive. The study investigated the role SARS-CoV-2 virus spread in nearby population plays in introducing the disease in nursing homes. MATERIAL AND METHODS: This was carried out through modelling the occurrences of first cases in each of 943 nursing homes of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes French Region over the first epidemic wave (March-July, 2020). The cumulative probabilities of COVID-19 outbreak in the nursing homes and those of hospitalization for the disease in the population were modelled in each of the twelve Départements of the Region over period March-July 2020. This allowed estimating the duration of the active outbreak period, the dates and heights of the peaks of outbreak probabilities in nursing homes, and the dates and heights of the peaks of hospitalization probabilities in the population. Spearman coefficient estimated the correlation between the two peak series. RESULTS: The cumulative proportion of nursing homes with COVID-19 outbreaks was 52% (490/943; range: 22-70% acc. Département). The active outbreak period in the nursing homes lasted 11 to 21 days (acc. Département) and ended before lockdown end. Spearman correlation between outbreak probability peaks in nursing homes and hospitalization probability peaks in the population (surrogate of the incidence peaks) was estimated at 0.71 (95% CI: [0.66; 0.78]). CONCLUSION: The modelling highlighted a strong correlation between the outbreak in nursing homes and the external pressure of the disease. It indicated that avoiding disease outbreaks in nursing homes requires a tight control of virus spread in the surrounding populations.

Trends in the Use of Residential Settings Among Older Adults.

OBJECTIVES: As the U.S. population ages, the prevalence of disability and functional limitations, and demand for long-term services and supports (LTSS), will increase. This study identified the distribution of older adults across different residential settings, and how their health characteristics have changed over time. METHODS: A cross-sectional analysis of older adults residing in traditional housing, community-based residential facilities (CBRFs), and nursing facilities using 3 data sources: the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS), 2008 and 2013; the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), 2008 and 2014; and the National Health and Aging Trends Study, 2011 and 2015. We calculated the age-standardized prevalence of older adults by setting, functional limitations, and comorbidities and tested for health characteristics changes relative to the baseline year (2002). RESULTS: The proportion of older adults in traditional housing increased over time, relative to baseline (p < .05), while the proportion of older adults in CBRFs was unchanged. The proportion of nursing facility residents declined from 2002 to 2013 in the MCBS (p < .05). The prevalence of dementia and functional limitations among traditional housing residents increased, relative to the baseline year in the HRS and MCBS (p < .05). DISCUSSION: The proportion of older adults residing in traditional housing is increasing, while the nursing facility population is decreasing. This change may not be due to better health; rather, older adults may be relying on noninstitutional LTSS.

Lessons for deprescribing from a nonessential medication hold policy in US nursing homes.

BACKGROUND: At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, a large nursing home chain implemented a policy to temporarily hold potentially unnecessary medications. We describe rates of held and discontinued medications after a temporary hold policy of potentially unnecessary or nonessential medications. METHODS: This retrospective cohort study uses electronic health record (EHR) data on 3247 residents of 64 nursing homes operated by a multistate long-term care provider. Medications were documented in the electronic medication administration record. Overall medication held and discontinued incidences are reported. Hierarchical Bayesian modeling is used to determine individual probabilities for medication discontinuation within each facility. RESULTS: In total, 3247 residents had 5297 nonessential medications held. Multivitamins were most likely to be held, followed by histamine-2 receptor antagonists, antihistamines, and statins. At the end of the hold policy, 2897 of 5297 (54%) were permanently discontinued, including probiotics (73%), histamine-2 receptor antagonists (66%), antihistamines (64%), and statins (45%). Demographics, cognitive and functional impairment were similar between residents with medications who were discontinued versus continued. For most medications, more than 50% of the variance in whether medications were discontinued was explained by facility rather than resident-level factors. CONCLUSION: A temporary medication hold policy implemented during the CoVID-19 pandemic led to the deprescribing of a plurality of 'nonessential' medications. This type of organization-wide initiative may be an effective mechanism for altering future prescribing behaviors to reduce the use of unnecessary medications.

Two New York Laws Set Hospital, Nursing Home Staffing Requirements.

Noncompliance could result in civil penalties.

Protecting Nursing Home Residents and Staff from COVID-19.

Two new tools from the AHRQ help facilitate observational audits.

Building community and resilience in Massachusetts nursing homes during the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, frontline nursing home staff faced extraordinary stressors including high infection and mortality rates and ever-changing and sometimes conflicting federal and state regulations. To support nursing homes in evidence-based infection control practices, the Massachusetts Senior Care Association and Hebrew SeniorLife partnered with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality AHRQ ECHO National Nursing Home COVID-19 Action Network (the network). This educational program provided 16 weeks of free weekly virtual sessions to 295 eligible nursing homes, grouped into nine cohorts of 30-33 nursing homes. Eighty-three percent of eligible nursing homes in Massachusetts participated in the Network, and Hebrew SeniorLife's Training Center served the vast majority. Each cohort was led by geriatrics clinicians and nursing home leaders, and coaches trained in quality improvement. The interactive sessions provided timely updates on COVID-19 infection control best practices to improve care and also created a peer-to-peer learning community to share ongoing challenges and potential solutions. The weekly Network meetings were a source of connection, emotional support, and validation and may be a valuable mechanism to support resilience and well-being for nursing home staff.

Separate and Unequal: A Time to Reimagine Dementia.

The rapid emergence of COVID-19 has had far-reaching effects across all sectors of health and social care, but none more so than for residential long-term care homes. Mortality rates of older people with dementia in residential long-term care homes have been exponentially higher than the general public. Morbidity rates are also higher in these homes with the effects of government-imposed COVID-19 public health directives (e.g., strict social distancing), which have led most residential long-term care homes to adopt strict 'no visitor' and lockdown policies out of concern for their residents' physical safety. This tragic toll of the COVID-19 pandemic highlights profound stigma-related inequities. Societal assumptions that people living with dementia have no purpose or meaning and perpetuate a deep pernicious fear of, and disregard for, persons with dementia. This has enabled discriminatory practices such as segregation and confinement to residential long-term care settings that are sorely understaffed and lack a supportive, relational, and enriching environment. With a sense of moral urgency to address this crisis, we forged alliances across the globe to form Reimagining Dementia: A Creative Coalition for Justice. We are committed to shifting the culture of dementia care from centralized control, safety, isolation, and punitive interventions to a culture of inclusion, creativity, justice, and respect. Drawing on the emancipatory power of the imagination with the arts (e.g., theatre, improvisation, music), and grounded in authentic partnerships with persons living with dementia, we aim to advance this culture shift through education, advocacy, and innovation at every level of society.

Health conditions of potential risk for severe Covid-19 in institutionalized elderly people.

The objective of this study was to identify the health conditions considered potential risk factors for severe Covid-19 and analyze its association with the BMI of elderly people living in Long-Term Care Facilities (LTCF). This is a descriptive and cross-sectional study, with a quantitative approach, carried out in eight LTCF in the Metropolitan Region of Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, with a population of 267 elderly people, between the months of February and December 2018. The Elderly Health Handbook was used to collect data on sociodemographic, health and risk factors. The Pearson's Chi-square test and odds ratio were used for the analysis. A higher frequency of low weight was observed in elderly people with cognitive impairment (24.6%), and overweight in those hypertensive (23.3%) and diabetics (12.9%). BMI was associated with the age group of 80 years or over, hypertension and diabetes (p = 0.013; p < 0.001; p = 0.001). Hypertensive elderly people were more likely to have low weight when compared to non-hypertensive individuals (RC = 3.6; 95% CI 1.5-8.6). The institutionalized elderly individuals present health conditions that may contribute to the occurrence of adverse outcomes in case of infection by Covid-19. The importance of protective measures for this population must be reinforced, in view of the devastating action of this disease in these institutions.

Results of the Missouri Quality Initiative in Sustaining Changes in Nursing Home Care: Six-Year Trends of Reducing Hospitalizations of Nursing Home Residents.

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this article is to present six-year findings of the Missouri Quality Initiative (MOQI) to reduce unnecessary hospitalizations for long-stay nursing home residents. DESIGN: A CMS funded demonstration project analyzed over 6-years using a single group design. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: The setting was 16 Midwestern US nursing homes ranging in size between 121 and 321 beds located in urban and rural areas in one geographic region. The sample of eligible residents averaged from 1819 in 2014 to 1068 in 2019. MEASURES: Resident data were analyzed using descriptive methods of aggregate facilities' hospital transfer rates per 1000 resident days and changes per year of average hospital transfer rates. Individual facility transfer rates were grouped by level of performance (best, mixed, and low). Leadership turnover and engagement were also described. INTERVENTION: Full-time advanced practice registered nurses (APRN) and an operations support team focused on reducing unnecessary hospitalizations for long-stay nursing home residents. RESULTS: Total transfers for 2014-2019 was 6913 and the average transfer rate per 1000 resident days declined from 2.48 in 2014 to a low of 1.89 in 2018 and slightly increased to 1.99 in 2019. Eleven nursing homes achieved sustained improvement, five did not. Differences in leadership turnover and engagement were noted by level of performance; however, three outlier facilities were identified. CONCLUSIONS/IMPLICATIONS: The MOQI intervention achieved improved outcomes over six-years in the majority of nursing homes in the project. The embedded APRN's daily focus on project goals supported by a multi-disciplinary operations team facilitated success. Facility leadership stability and engagement in the project likely contributed to outcomes. Full-time presence of APRNs coupled with an operations' support team improved nursing homes outcomes, however Medicare currently restricts APRNs hired by nursing homes from billing Medicare for direct care services. This unnecessary restriction of practice discourages nursing homes from hiring APRNs and should be abolished.

Care homes and COVID-19 in Hong Kong: how the lessons from SARS were used to good effect.

In Hong Kong, about 15% of older people (aged 80 and above) live in care homes, one of the highest proportions in the world. During the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2003, the crude fatality rate for older people in care homes that were infected was 72%. After taking the advice of a team of international experts, the Hong Kong Government implemented comprehensive preventive measures to cope with the future epidemics. This commentary evaluates the effectiveness of these measures in coping with both influenza outbreaks and COVID-19 and suggests the lessons learnt are relevant to both developed and less developed countries? Lockdown in care homes is very effective under two conditions. Healthcare workers must wear surgical masks in the care home. Hospitals must adopt a strict policy to prevent virus transmission by discharged patients. Care homes situated within high-rise residential towers are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 transmission; their residents can more easily be infected by asymptomatic carriers from the community. Airborne virus can also be transmitted more swiftly in care homes with open-plan layouts. Lockdown had been shown to significantly reduce influenza outbreaks in care homes. On the other hand, lockdown causes loneliness to residents. Care homes allow residents to move freely within the care home though with the risk of spreading the virus by resident who is an asymptomatic carrier. Finally, lockdown may cause family members to have guilty feelings. Family members can only make video call or window visit to residents.

Time from dementia diagnosis to nursing-home admission and death among persons with dementia: A multistate survival analysis.

OBJECTIVES: To estimate transition times from dementia diagnosis to nursing-home (NH) admission or death and to examine whether sex, education, marital status, level of cognitive impairment and dementia aetiology are associated with transition times. DESIGN: Markov multistate survival analysis and flexible parametric models. SETTING: Participants were recruited from the Norwegian Registry of Persons Assessed for Cognitive Symptoms (NorCog) in specialist healthcare between 2008 and 2017 and followed until August 2019, a maximum of 10.6 years follow-up time (mean 4.4 years, SD 2.2). Participants' address histories, emigration and vital status were retrieved from the National Population Registry from time of diagnosis and linked to NorCog clinical data. PARTICIPANTS: 2,938 home-dwelling persons with dementia, ages 40-97 years at time of diagnosis (mean 76.1, SD 8.5). RESULTS: During follow-up, 992 persons (34%) were admitted to nursing-homes (NHs) and 1,556 (53%) died. Approximately four years after diagnosis, the probability of living in a NH peaked at 19%; thereafter, the probability decreased due to mortality. Median elapsed time from dementia diagnosis to NH admission among those admitted to NHs was 2.28 years (IQR 2.32). The probability of NH admission was greater for women than men due to women´s lower mortality rate. Persons living alone, particularly men, had a higher probability of NH admission than cohabitants. Age, dementia aetiology and severity of cognitive impairment at time of diagnosis did not influence the probability of NH admission. Those with fewer than 10 years of education had a lower probability of NH admission than those with 10 years or more, and this was independent of the excess mortality in the less-educated group. CONCLUSION: Four years after diagnosis, half of the participants still lived at home, while NH residency peaked at 19%. Those with fewer than 10 years of education were less often admitted to NH.

Exploration of the acceptability and usability of advance care planning tools in long term care homes.

OBJECTIVES: Despite known benefits, advance care planning (ACP) is rarely a component of usual practice in long-term care (LTC). A series of tools and workbooks have been developed to support ACP uptake amongst the generable population. Yet, their potential for improving ACP uptake in LTC has yet to be examined. This study explored if available ACP tools are acceptable for use in LTC by (a) eliciting staff views on the content and format that would support ACP tool usability in LTC (b) examining if publicly available ACP tools include content identified as relevant by LTC home staff. Ultimately this study aimed to identify the potential for existing ACP tools to improve ACP engagement in LTC. METHODS: A combination of focus group deliberations with LTC home staff (N = 32) and content analysis of publicly available ACP tools (N = 32) were used to meet the study aims. RESULTS: Focus group deliberations suggested that publicly available ACP tools may be acceptable for use in LTC if the tools include psychosocial elements and paper-based versions exist. Content analysis of available paper-based tools revealed that only a handful of ACP tools (32/611, 5%) include psychosocial content, with most encouraging psychosocially-oriented reflections (30/32, 84%), and far fewer providing direction around other elements of ACP such as communicating psychosocial preferences (14/32, 44%) or transforming preferences into a documented plan (7/32, 22%). CONCLUSIONS: ACP tools that include psychosocial content may improve ACP uptake in LTC because they elicit future care issues considered pertinent and can be supported by a range of clinical and non-clinical staff. To increase usability and engagement ACP tools may require infusion of scenarios pertinent to frail older persons, and a better balance between psychosocial content that elicits reflections and psychosocial content that supports communication.

Assessment of changes in place of death of older adults who died from dementia in the United States, 2000-2014: a time-series cross-sectional analysis.

BACKGROUND: As the mortality attributable to dementia-related diseases in the United States escalates, providing quality and equitable end-of-life care for dementia patients across care settings has become a major public health challenge. Previous research suggests that place of death may be an indicator of quality of end-of-life care. This study aims to examine the geographical variations and temporal trends in place of death of dementia decedents in the US and the relationships between place of death of dementia decedents and broad structural determinants. METHODS: Using nationwide death certificates between 2000 and 2014, we described the changes in place of death of dementia decedents across states and over time. Chi-square test for trend in proportions was used to test significant linear trend in the proportion of dementia decedents at difference places. State fixed effects models were estimated to assess the relationships between the proportion of dementia decedents at difference places and state-level factors, particularly availability of care facility resources and public health insurance expenditures. RESULTS: Dementia decedents were more likely to die at home and other places and less likely to die at institutional settings over the study period. There was wide inter-state and temporal variability in the proportions of deaths at different places. Among state-level factors, availability of nursing home beds was positively associated with rates of nursing home/long term care deaths and negatively associated with rates of home deaths. Medicaid expenditure on institutional long term supports and services was positively associated with rates of nursing home/long term care deaths and negatively associated with rates of home deaths. Medicaid expenditure on home and community based services, however, had a positive association with rates of home deaths. CONCLUSIONS: There was a persistent shift in the place of death of dementia decedents from institutions to homes and communities. Increased investments in home and community based health services may help dementia patients to die at their homes. As home becomes an increasingly common place of death of dementia patients, it is critical to monitor the quality of end-of-life care at this setting.

Becoming or Remaining Agitated: The Course of Agitation in People with Dementia Living in Care Homes. The English Longitudinal Managing Agitation and Raising Quality of Life (MARQUE) Study.

Care home residents with dementia often have accompanying agitation. We investigated agitation's course at 5 time-points in 1,424 people with dementia over 16 months in 86 English care homes. We categorized baseline agitation symptoms on the Cohen-Mansfield Agitation Inventory (CMAI) into none (CMAI = 29; 15%), subclinical (CMAI = 30-45; 45%), or clinically-significant (CMAI > 45; 40%). 88% of those with no agitation at baseline remained free of clinically-significant agitation at all follow-ups. Seventy percent of those exhibiting clinically-significant agitation at baseline had clinically-significant agitation at some follow-ups. Over a 16-month observation period, this study finds many care home residents with dementia never develop clinically significant agitation and interventions should be for treatment not prevention.

Quantifying the roles of vomiting, diarrhea, and residents vs. staff in norovirus transmission in U.S. nursing home outbreaks.

The role of individual case characteristics, such as symptoms or demographics, in norovirus transmissibility is poorly understood. Six nursing home norovirus outbreaks occurring in South Carolina, U.S. from 2014 to 2016 were examined. We aimed to quantify the contribution of symptoms and other case characteristics in norovirus transmission using the reproduction number (REi) as an estimate of individual case infectivity and to examine how transmission changes over the course of an outbreak. Individual estimates of REi were calculated using a maximum likelihood procedure to infer the average number of secondary cases generated by each case. The associations between case characteristics and REi were estimated using a weighted multivariate mixed linear model. Outbreaks began with one to three index case(s) with large estimated REi's (range: 1.48 to 8.70) relative to subsequent cases. Of the 209 cases, 155 (75%) vomited, 164 (79%) had diarrhea, and 158 (76%) were nursing home residents (vs. staff). Cases who vomited infected 2.12 (95% CI: 1.68, 2.68) times the number of individuals as non-vomiters, cases with diarrhea infected 1.39 (95% CI: 1.03, 1.87) times the number of individuals as cases without diarrhea, and resident-cases infected 1.53 (95% CI: 1.15, 2.02) times the number of individuals as staff-cases. Index cases tended to be residents (vs. staff) who vomited and infected considerably more secondary cases compared to non-index cases. Results suggest that individuals, particularly residents, who vomit are more infectious and tend to drive norovirus transmission in U.S. nursing home norovirus outbreaks. While diarrhea also plays a role in norovirus transmission, it is to a lesser degree than vomiting in these settings. Results lend support for prevention and control measures that focus on cases who vomit, particularly if those cases are residents.