The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is partnering with the University of New Mexico’s ECHO Institute, Albuquerque, and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), Boston, to establish a National Nursing Home COVID Action Network, the agency announced in a press release. The network will provide free training and mentorship to nursing homes on how to implement evidence-based infection prevention and safety practices.
Nursing home residents are especially vulnerable to SARS-COV-2 (COVID-19) due to their age, their underlying frailty, and their communal living conditions. And nursing home staff who care for them are among the most needed and most at-risk essential workers, AHRQ said. It is estimated that almost 56,000 nursing home residents and staff have died from COVID-19, representing more than one-quarter of the nation’s known COVID-19 deaths.
The new network is being created under an AHRQ contract worth up to $237 million that is part of the nearly $5 billion Provider Relief Fund authorized earlier this year under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. While $2.5 billion has already been distributed to help fund testing, personal protective equipment, and other supplies, another $2 billion is available for Medicare and Medicaid-certified nursing homes that show improvement in infection control.
The ECHO Institute is recruiting academic medical centers and large health centers across the country to serve as training centers for local nursing homes. Over 15,000 nursing homes that are certified to participate in the Medicare and Medicaid programs will be able to participate in a 16-week training program using a standardized curriculum developed by the IHI. Nursing homes that actively participate are eligible to receive $6,000 in compensation to cover staff training time.
Weekly virtual training sessions will be facilitated by small multidisciplinary teams of subject matter and quality improvement experts. Sessions will combine short lectures that provide immediately usable best practices with case-based group learning. Between sessions, a robust community of practice will foster peer-to-peer learning supported by additional expert consultation.
