The Wisconsin State Senate voted 18-13 on Tuesday, January 26 to end Gov. Tony Evers’ public health emergency declaration and indoor masking mandate.
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On Thursday, January 7, the Wisconsin State Assembly on a party-line vote passed Assembly Bill 1, COVID-19 relief legislation. Governor Evers immediately indicated he would veto the bill. As a result, on January 12, Senate Republicans modified the bill in a manner which earned the Governor's support. The Senate's amended version passed with wide bipartisan support, 29-2. However, Republican leaders in the Assembly altered the bill and passed it on a party-line vote on Tuesday, January 26, sending the bill back to the Senate. The Assembly's changes are not favorable to LTC.
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WHCA/WiCAL staff meets regularly with leadership from the Division of Quality Assurance. Last week, staff and DQA discussed COVID-19 vaccine clinics, IIDR/IDR, restart of recertification surveys, and surveyor testing and vaccination.
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Superior Health Quality Alliance is launching their third cohort for the COVID-10 ECHO Program. They are looking to recruit 40 nursing homes from Wisconsin and Minnesota. The deadline for recruitment is February 5 so action is needed quickly if you are interested.
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AHCA/NCAL has released a new three-part webinar series on ahcancalED that addresses the extraordinary strains the COVID-19 pandemic has on nursing facility and assisted living residents and staff.
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AHCA/NCAL has released a new four-module webinar series on ahcancalED that trains staff about how to deliver person centered care under the Patient Driven Payment Model (PDPM). Person Centered Care in a PDPM World is built to train senior staff about delivering short-stay post-acute person-centered care and position them to then train facility staff.
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WHCA/WiCAL's 2021 Virtual Legislative Day is coming up! WHCA/WiCAL depends on our members to get the word out to their State Legislators about the perspective of Wisconsin’s long-term care providers regarding the 2021-23 Biennial State Budget. Register today!
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The next session of the Cultivating LTC Leaders webinar series, entitled Mastering the Long-Term Care Survey Process Part 2: Survey Success, will be held on February 3, 2021 at 1:00 p.m. and will go over the legal aspects of the statement of deficiency, enforcement remedies, writing an effective plan of correction, challenging and correcting deficiencies, IDR/IIDR, and the administrative law hearing process.
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A reminder that DHS has a number of infection prevention resources available to assist local health departments and long-term care facilities (LTCFs) with COVID-19 prevention and response.
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President Biden issued an Executive Order on protecting worker health and safety. This order includes direction for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to issue revised guidance on COVID-19, to consider whether any emergency temporary standards on COVID-19 will need to be issued, to review enforcement efforts around COVID-19, and outreach to industries hit hardest by COVID-19.
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On Tuesday, the Department of Health Services announced future groups that will be eligible for vaccine. These populations will tentatively be eligible beginning March 1, though the start date is dependent on the vaccine supply from the federal government.
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The Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) launched the Provider Relief Fund (PRF) Reporting Portal. The portal is only open for providers to set up user accounts and register to submit reports. In the updated PRF Reporting requirements (click here), HHS indicates reporting is delayed until further notice. No date is provided in the PRF Reporting FAQs.
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Frequent testing and testing at symptom onset is an effective way of detecting the presence of COVID-19 early, slowing the spread in our long term care facilities. The Department of Health Services (DHS) recently announced an increase in its support of COVID-19 testing in nursing homes and Assisted Living Facilities (ALFs) to include BinaxNOW point of care antigen tests.
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The COVID-19 vaccination is an important tool to help stop the pandemic, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends health care personnel be among those offered the first doses of COVID-19 vaccines. As the U.S. COVID-19 vaccination program continues, some may have questions about the interaction between new COVID-19 mRNA vaccines and tests used for tuberculosis (TB) infection.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is closely monitoring COVID-19 vaccine safety through several robust monitoring systems. Long term care facilities play a key role in supporting the CDC and FDA’s approach to safety monitoring by reporting possible side effects.
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Although they provide 80% to 90% of all direct patient care, nurse aides are often not fully prepared to meet the sometimes-complex mental health needs of the residents they care for.
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Due to safety concerns, the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) determined that special voting deputies (SVDs) will not be dispatched to care facilities to administer voting for the February 16, 2021 Spring Primary.
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