Key Updates for Week 20, ending May 22, 2021 Seasonal influenza activity in the United States remains lower than usual for this time of year. Viruses Clinical Labs – The percentage of respiratory specimens testing positive for influenza at clinical laboratories is 0.1% this week. Public Health Labs – The number of influenza positive specimens reported by public health labs …
On June 10th, 2021, The Hawai’i Department of Health issued a Notice of Violation and Order to an adult residential care home for operating without a license. The owner of Island Promise Homes was fined $1,000 for each day the unlicensed care facility had residents, which amounted to 828 days. Let this be a reminder to make sure you are …
Since December 2019, the world has been influenced by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) which is caused by the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). As of February 18, 2021, approximately 110 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and 2.4 million deaths have been reported around the world. The first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in the first half of 2020 …
On May 26, 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the investigational monoclonal antibody therapy sotrovimab for the treatment of mild-to-moderate COVID-19 in adults and pediatric patients (12 years of age and older weighing at least 40 kilograms with positive results of direct SARS-CoV-2 viral testing and who are at high risk for …
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services launched the COVID-19 Public Education Campaign, “a national initiative to increase public confidence in and uptake of COVID-19 vaccines while reinforcing basic prevention measures such as mask-wearing and social distancing”. Their website includes campaign resources and toolkits such as free guides, ads, and social media content, information about the COVID-19 Community Corp, …
A team of researchers at Lund University in Sweden have identified that a simple blood test, couple with brief memory tests, showed who will develop Alzheimer’s disease in the future (within 2-6 years) with a high degree of accuracy (90%). “We show for the first time that a time- and cost-effective diagnostic algorithm clearly outperforms the clinical work-up typically done …
On May 21, 2021, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services determined that the COVID-19 pandemic continues to constitute an epidemic in Michigan, but removed their March 17, 2021 “Requirements for Residential Care Facilities” order. Please read their full release below: May 21, 2021 – Requirements for Residential Care Facilities – Rescission of March 17, 2021
Gluten has become a bad word in our society, everywhere you look, labels say “gluten-free”, you can even order a pizza with a gluten-free crust! Most recently, the concept that gluten could affect cognitive function was popularized by a best-selling book “Grain Brain”. Concern for such an association is in part due to the patients with celiac disease. Current findings …
Care home settings, such as nursing homes or residential care homes, present unique challenges to patient safety. This systematic review published by the National Library of Medicine identified several gaps in the available safety measures used for quality monitoring and improvement in older adult care homes, including patient experience (i.e., quality of life or other resident-reported indicators of safety, psychological …
Assisted living providers across the country have established standardized approaches to care and these approaches often result in improved lengths of stay among residents, more success at managing comorbidities and overall improvement in operations. Although there are barriers to implementing standardized care in assisted living, such as licensure regulations, there are also many success stories. In a great article published …
