On January 3rd, Katie Sloan and Ruth Katz met with HHS Secretary Becerra and a small group of his senior advisors, along with Mark Parkinson and David Gifford of the American Health Care Association. This was the second meeting of the group convened by the Secretary to focus on increasing COVID-19 vaccine uptake among nursing home residents. The Secretary reminded us of the obligation nursing homes have to educate residents and their families about vaccines. Nationally, only 33% of nursing home residents are up to date (with the most recent booster); LeadingAge member nursing homes are seeing much higher rates – just under 46% of residents are up to date. For reference, only 39% of adults over age 65 in the general community are up to date.
HHS worked with the White House to post a read out of the meeting. Although not reflected in the read out, LeadingAge and AHCA used the meeting to discuss suggestions for departmental actions to help raise rates of resident acceptance. Suggestions included revising CDC information materials to reflect the idea that the vaccines won’t prevent COVID but will reduce the severity of symptoms; providing single vial doses; working with hospitals to encourage them to offer vaccines on discharge; and increasing the Secretary’s use of communication channels to “nudge” residents and their family members.
The Secretary and his team are very interested in details about what nursing homes are doing to educate residents. They would like to point to providers with high success rates and learn how they did it, then hold them out as exemplars. LeadingAge members with positive experiences can reach out to Ruth (rkatz@leadingage.org), Janine (jfinck-boyle@leadingage.org), or Jodi (jeyigor@leadingage.org).
