No LTC – ISDH Thursday call this week.

LeadingAge Indiana regional Zoom calls will likely resume the week of October 19. Calls will be combined to generate more participation per call but will follow the same general format. Please watch this space and your email in-box for communications in the next week. 

Please read though Project ECHO material in the National section below. If you have an interest in participating in this non-mandatory data reporting/aggregation project, please contact Eric Essley
Upcoming Professional Development
From LeadingAge National
TODAY Communications Workshop - Wednesday, September 30, at 3:30pm Eastern. From mask requirements to visitor policies to staff morale, join the call to hear about “risk communication” strategies that work, and ones that definitely don’t. If you are not registered for calls, you can join us here.


 
BD Batching Guide. BD has just released this batching guide for use with the BD Veritor machine.
 
NHSN Updates. NHSN has been contemplating updating enrollment to Level 3 security, which requires a SAMS grid card. This upgrade will allow nursing homes to report on patient-level data (“such as SARS-CoV-2 test results”), rather than simply reporting facility-level data as they currently do. When this initiative was first announced back in the summer, we hoped it was a step toward streamlining reporting requirements. LeadingAge received that confirmation from CDC today. NHSN will update on October 15 to allow nursing homes to begin reporting SARS-CoV-2 test results directly to CDC through NHSN. LA has asked CMS to determine whether this will satisfy CLIA reporting requirements for point-of-care testing that is completed in nursing homes – we all are awaiting a response. Instructions on how to upgrade enrollment can be found here and we are hearing that the QIOs are taking on the role of assisting with these upgrades.
 
Other NHSN updates re reporting flu vaccine data. NHSN will be hosting 2 webinars to go over these changes:
  • Webinar 1: Thursday, October 1 at 1:00pm ET. Register here
  • Webinar 2: Tuesday, October 6 at 1:00pm ET. Register here
 
Project ECHO. Researchers and Clinicians from the University of New Mexico are spearheading a national project with LeadingAge and AHCA affiliates to aggregate data and create reports designed to combat COVID-19. Please review this Question and Answer document, the ECHO website, and the attachment.
  • ISDH, the IU School of Medicine, and the Regenstrief Institute are all on board at this stage - but this will NOT be mandatory for Indiana SNFs.
From ISDH
Total positive cases: 120,019
Total deaths: 3,405
Total tested: 2,066,474
Forward This Update to Co-Workers