News

Biden administration finalizes controversial minimum staffing mandate at nursing homes CNN
April 22, 2024
By Tami Luhby

Nursing Home Staffing Mandate Finalized: Balancing Quality Care and Workforce Shortages The Biden administration has finalized the first-ever federal minimum staffing rule for nursing homes. This controversial mandate aims to address chronic understaffing and improve resident ...

On February 28, DignityMA presented this year's OutStanding Federal Legislator Award to Elizabeth Warren. Her State Director, Janice Rotenberg, accepted the award. While the meeting itself went well, the John F. Kennedy Federal Building presented major accessibility challenges. Below is our letter to the General Services Administration(pdf). April 17, 2024
To: ...

Notice to Class April: The Notice to Class is being distributed to all residents of nursing homes in Massachusetts. If you object to the Settlement Agreement you must send your objections in writing to the Court and Plaintiffs' counsel by May 31, 2024. Marsters Lawsuit Settlement Agreement Reached April 16, ...

New York Academy of Medicine (NYAM)
By Elisa Fisher, MPH, MSW; Sheaba Daniel, MPH; Mayssa Gregoire, BS
March 2024 Need, Access, Impact, and Opportunities: Findings From a Multi-Site Evaluation of Elder Justice Shelters in the U.S. Introduction
At least one in 10 older adults in the U.S. experiences abuse or exploitation, a rate ...

Care At Risk: Upheaval in the Nursing Home Industry
www.GoodJobsFirst.org 
By Siobhan Standaert
December 2023 Executive Summary
A small group of lesser-known nursing home chains with poor patient safety records are taking over a growing share of the long-term care industry as some of the larger players abandon the business. Federal and state regulators ...

Joint Legislative Committee on Bonding, Capital Debt and State Assets
April 2, 2024 Download (docx) Testimony in Support of H. 4138 - The Affordable Homes Act Dignity Alliance Massachusetts applauds the Healey-Driscoll Administration for their leadership in addressing the issue of housing as proposed in House Bill No. 4138 – the ...

Governor Healey’s budget proposal threatens 50 years of disability rights *Boston Globe, March 28, 2024
By Alex Green Her proposal to slash fundamental personal care services for the disabled is baffling. Every day, more than 40,000 Massachusetts residents wake up in their own beds and go about their lives thanks to ...

By Richard Moore
DignityMA’s poet laureate (aka, Chair, DignityMA’s Legislative Workgroup), with an AI assist Humpty Dumpty, policy bold,
Sat on a wall, so we're told.
A vision of streamlining, a central core,
For long-term care, they'd have us explore. All the Governor's horses, men and women,
Would centralize forms, again and again.
No more local ...

Read More about Humpty Dumpty

By Charlene Harrington, RN, PhD, University of San Francisco
The Conversation, March 14, 2024 Governments at both state and federal levels have yet to fully wield their authority to fight poor-quality care at for-profit nursing homes nationwide, leaving the pressing need for elder care accountability unmet. Medicare has the power to ...

By Charlene Harrington, RN, PhD, University of San Francisco, and investigative journalist Sean Campbell
The Conversation, March 14, 2024 For-profit nursing homes are cutting corners on safety and draining resources with financial shenanigans − especially at midsize chains that dodge public scrutiny The care at Landmark of Louisville Rehabilitation and Nursing ...

Wednesday, March 13, 2024
Presenter: Ellen DiPaola, JD, President & CEO, Honoring Choices Massachusetts Topics covered:

• The new Health Care Planning Process that makes it easy to start simple to serious illness planning conversations to direct care choices
• How to document care choices in 5 MA planning documents
• Ways to ...
  
  Read More about Study Session - Care Planning

University of California Los Angeles
By Dr. Ashvin Gandhi and Dr. Andrew Olenski
March 4, 2024
Summary prepared by Becker’s Hospital Review

A recent study led by researchers at the University of California Los Angeles study found reported nursing home profits may reflect only 37.1% of total profits as of 2019, suggesting a practice ...

The news below, on Benjamin Healthcare Center's announced closing, is listed most recent first. DignityMA Offers Help to Attorney Feaster Below are excerpts from an April 5 email sent to Attorney Feaster as he begins to navigate the conditions and options at Benjamin Health Care Center. Best case is for ...

Both former Senator Richard Moore and Margaret Morganroth Gullette published Letters to the Editor in the March 5 Boston Globe in response to several articles on the problems of Steward Health Care and private equity. Both letters are reprinted below. For-profit tendrils are making their way into nursing homes, other ...

Shedding Light on Nursing Home Industry Spending and Profits Long Term Care Community Connection
Tuesday, March 19, 2024, 1:00 p.m. On this program, Tyler Braun (Weill Cornell Medical College) discusses findings of a new study that unveils the obscured financial landscape of U.S. nursing homes. Register for LTCCC's March 19 Webinar ...

On February 2, several DignityMA members met with Secretary Kate Walsh of the Executive Office of Health and Human Services and Dr. Robert Goldstein, Commissioner of the Department of Public Health. DignityMA presented their thoughts and recommendations regarding various issues affecting the delivery of long-term services and care in the ...

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) was named the recipient of the Dignity Alliance Federal “Outstanding Federal Legislator Award.”   The presentation was  made on February 28th in Warren’s Boston Office in the JFK Federal Building at noon.  Janice Rotenberg, Senator Warren’s State Director, accept the award on behalf of the senator who ...

February 27 More than 500 older adults and advocates participated in the Older Adult Lobby Day in the Great Hall at the State House on Tuesday, February 27, 2024. Betsey Crimmins (Mass Home Care) and Ellen Taintor (Mystic Valley Elder Services) organized the event. Betsey Crimmins, Executive Director of Mass ...

Fact Sheet: Aging in the United States Population Reference Bureau, January 9, 2024
By Mark Mather and Paola Scommegna The current growth of the population ages 65 and older, driven by the large baby boom generation—those born between 1946 and 1964—is unprecedented in U.S. history. This aging of the U.S. population ...

Penny Shaw is a Dignity Alliance Massachusetts participant.  She has lived in a nursing home in Massachusetts for about two decades and is a renowned advocate for residents in long-term care. Penny was a policy advisor to CMS and was part of the White House’s Coronavirus Commission for Safety and ...