As Colorado faces the highest number of COVID-19 patients it’s seen in the past year with more than 94% of the ICU beds in the state currently occupied, Gov. Jared Polis has pointed to long-term care facilities as a possible lifeline for hospitals during this surge.
As nursing home operators across the country work to implement a staff vaccination mandate that many feel singles out the industry, those that work in nursing homes are expressing resentment over how the sector continues to be regulated and scrutinized.
Rather than penalizing and pushing staff out of these facilities even further, Andi Clark, chief nursing officer for Consulate Health Care, would like to see a more proactive and realistic approach on federal regulations moving forward.
“If you’ve had surveys lately, and we have, I think they are pretty ferocious,” she said during a one-on-one conversation at the Skilled Nursing News RETHINK conference this week. “I think they are very unfair. I think they forget how hard we’re still working.”
