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Facilities Housing News Study Session

DignityMA Study Session – The Future of Nursing Homes: Navigator Homes of Martha’s Vineyard – A case Study

Wednesday, September 27, 2023, 2:00 p.m. Embracing the core values in the disruptive concept for nursing home design, the “Green House” model, Navigator Homes of Martha’s Vineyard, opening this fall, will house 70 people in 5 homes with 14 residents each. Each resident has a private room with bathroom. Residents will share a living room, […]

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Facilities News Study Session Worker Support

Nursing Home Staffing

This important topic was not a DignityMA Study Session, but this post attempts to be a compilation of current information on the topic. CMS has released a Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) that would implement a minimum staffing standard in nursing homes. DignityMA is following this top closely, and will continue to provide opinions. […]

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Facilities News Spotlight

2023-09-11 Spotlight: HHS Proposes Minimum Staffing Standards to Enhance Safety and Quality in Nursing Homes

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid ServicesSeptember 1, 2023 Today, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), issued a proposed rule that seeks to establish comprehensive staffing requirements for nursing homes—including, for the first time, national minimum nurse staffing standards—to ensure access to safe, high-quality […]

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Covid-19 Facilities News Spotlight

2023-08-21 Spotlight: How Nursing Homes Failed to Protect Residents from Covid

By Paula Span, New York Times (free access), August 19, 2023 The first terrifying wave of Covid-19 caused 60,000 deaths among residents of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities within five months. As the pandemic wore on, medical guidelines called for promptly administering newly approved antiviral treatments to infected patients at high risk of […]

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Facilities News Spotlight

2023-08-07 Spotlight: My Friend is Trapped in a Nursing Home. What Can I Do?

By Kwame Anthony Appiah, New York Times Ethicist columnistNew York Times (free access), July 28, 2023 Five years ago, I began volunteering as a bill payer for a legally blind, 95-year-old woman on public assistance. The job involved handling paperwork that clients could no longer handle themselves, thus helping enable them to remain at home. […]

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Covid-19 Facilities News Testimony Worker Support

DPH Proposed Regulations Eliminating COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate for Personnel

(Scroll down to read DignityMA testimony for this proposal.) The Massachusetts Department of Public Health has issued proposed amendments to regulations for long term care facilities and other providers aligning the flu and COVID-19 vaccine requirements for personnel, eliminating the mandate that all personnel be vaccinated with COVID-19 vaccine.  Under the proposed amendments, personnel will […]

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Facilities News

DignityMA Letter Regarding Mass General Brigham’s Skilled Nursing Facility Collaborative

To: Anne Klibanski, MD, President and CEO, Mass General Brigham Dear Dr. Klibanski, Dignity Alliance Massachusetts is a statewide, non-profit coalition of individuals and organizations advocating for older adults, people with disabilities, and their caregivers. By way of introduction to Dignity Alliance, we have attached a copy of our most recent annual report. We recently […]

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Facilities Home and Community Based News Policy

Dignity Alliance Wants to be Cool!

Media Release Calls for Executive Action and Legislation to promote cooling for older adults and people with disabilities As another heat wave with temperatures in the nineties begins this week, Dignity Alliance Massachusetts is calling on state government to protect older adults and people with disabilities from the dangers of extreme heat. In a letter […]

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Facilities News Spotlight

2023-07-24 Spotlight: It’s Time to Bring Back Asylums

Editor’s note: This is a provocative essay. It includes a reference to the Worcester (MA) Recovery Center, a facility for 320 long-term patients with private rooms and “a recovery-inspired residential design” which opened in 2012. If you have observations or comments regarding the essay which you would like to share, please send them to Digest@DignityAllianceMA.org. […]

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Advocacy Facilities News

DignityMA Concerns with H. 3929 – Comprehensive Nursing Home Legislation

Dignity Alliance MA has released a statement on “What’s Needed for Transformational Nursing Home Reform to Improve Quality and Oversight” as well as a letter to the Chairs of the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing. You can download (the statement download contains significant footnotes not included below) these or read them below. What’s Needed […]