A new study from researchers at Harvard, UCLA, and the University of Rochester puts hard numbers on a trend observed early in the pandemic: The total number of employees coming in and out of a given building had a direct and deadly impact on the risk of COVID-19 outbreaks. Simply put, the more unique staffers that a facility employed, the greater the chance of infections.
Study co-author Brian McGarry specifically called out the Green House model as a blueprint for change. With its focus on tight-knit, empowered care teams, the GHP staffing structure fits perfectly with calls for workforce reforms in long-term care that benefit caregivers and elders alike.
“Everyone was taking the view that the more staffing you have, the better you’re going to be able to do infection control practices and that if the staff is more highly skilled — more nurses relative to CNAs — they too might be able to better implement infection control,” McGarry told McKnight's. “That makes sense from a conceptual standpoint, but our paper shows that those things are on the margin. Something that matters a lot more is just how much traffic you have coming in and out of your facility.”
