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During in-person assisted living surveys, the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) has increased its focus on side rails and other bed-attached assistive devices, often known as bedside rails, safety rails, grab bars, or assist bars.

In a series of weekly webinars over the past several weeks, the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) provided detailed information about emergency preparedness expectations for assisted living settings and what to anticipate when surveyed. You can review the five emergency preparedness presentations on the MDH website.

LeadingAge Minnesota members virtually gathered for our largest advocacy event of the year, the Day at the Capitol. Aging services providers from across the state met with over 50 lawmakers, including several Senate and House legislative leaders, to make their voices heard and advance important policy initiatives for seniors and their caregivers.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on April 6 released a highly-anticipated and comprehensive study of the challenges facing nursing homes in the United States.

This week the House and Senate have each introduced supplemental budget bills that fund health and human services areas. We were pleased to see that the Senate bill provides significant funding for the Long-Term Care Imperative workforce agenda. Unfortunately, the House bill does not, but the bill does include a few scattered positive elements.

In a Memorandum released on April 7, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that it will terminate several temporary emergency declaration blanket waivers that have provided nursing facilities and other provider types with flexibilities designed to support the COVID response.

In partnership with the Life Course Center, the Center for Healthy Aging and Innovation will host an interactive webinar featuring a panel on the topic of the long-term care workforce on April 20 at 12:30 p.m.

Gain the tools and skills to effectively market your community and build occupancy by attending LeadingAge Minnesota’s 2022 Sales & Marketing in Senior Living Certificate Program on April 12, May 10, and June 14 in St. Paul.

Dan Dixon, President/CEO of Guardian Angels Senior Services and an active member of LeadingAge Minnesota, will retire from his position on April 4. Guardian Angels Senior Services has announced that Traci Larson will succeed Dan as the organization’s next leader.

If you plan to attend the Argentum conference this year, make sure to use the code SP100 to save $100 off the cost of a full conference pass. If you register by April 6, there are additional early-bird discounts. You do not need to be a member of Argentum to attend this very valuable conference!

LeadingAge Minnesota is excited to welcome Anna Mowry as our new Director of Workforce Solutions. Anna comes to us with extensive experience supporting workforce development in long-term care settings.

This week, several members of LeadingAge Minnesota attended LeadingAge's annual Leadership Summit. In conjunction with the conference, LeadingAge facilitated meetings with our state delegation in Congress to discuss several policy priorities to ensure we have enough caregivers to provide safe, quality care for Minnesota's seniors.

As long-term care settings face staffing shortages throughout the state, Governor Walz set a goal in Dec. 2021 to recruit and train 1,000 new certified nursing assistants (CNAs) through the Next Generation Nursing Assistant initiative. On Tuesday, Governor Walz joined CNAs and other health care professionals at St. Paul College to announce the initiative surpassed its goal.

On behalf of the Long-Term Care Imperative, we are sharing a petition to support an important bill that would help raise your wages and address the staff shortage in senior care.

Infection prevention and control is a significant focus in our settings, particularly because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In Minnesota, we are starting to see an increase in another common illness: the Norovirus.

Testing continues to be an essential component of infection prevention and control in our settings. Questions about required testing continue because of the rapid guidance changes and the different required testing strategies between assisted living and nursing homes. New testing guidance for assisted living communities was updated on March 3.

The Senior LinkAge Line will be updating their verification codes, which will have a slightly different look than previously generated codes. The change is anticipated to take effect in April.

On Tuesday, March 29, LeadingAge Minnesota testified in support of our bill to provide permanent wage increases to caregivers in the Senate’s Human Services Reform Finance and Policy Committee.

The NHSN Vaccination Team is providing two webinars on Tuesday, March 29, and Thursday, March 31, at 1 pm to review new “Event-Level COVID-19 Vaccination Forms.”  These are currently called the Data Tracking Worksheets that are available to facilities in an Excel spreadsheet format. This worksheet has now been built into the NHSN application for long-term care facilities to manage person-level vaccination data.

Sodexo Seniors and McKnight's Senior Living are hosting a free webinar on the staffing challenges facing senior services on March 30 at noon (CT). Along with Sodexo Seniors CEO (Zeta Smith) and VP Human Resources (Jim Moran), Matt McNeill, Director of Senior Living at StuartCo and a LeadingAge Minnesota member, will be the featured presenters.

There are five weeks remaining to view on-demand content from the Virtual Institute and select sessions from the in-person conference. Access to view sessions and earn CEUs is available online for registered participants through April 30.

We invite you to join your colleagues from all over the state at our upcoming Virtual Day at the Capitol. It is a day filled with information and advocacy.

Attend the Sales & Marketing in Senior Living Certificate Program to refresh your marketing efforts, sharpen your sales and closing skills, and increase occupancy. The three-part series is April 12, May 10, and June 14 in St. Paul. It emphasizes the proven, foundational practices to help distinguish your community from your competitors. 

Mary Baker, a resident at The Glenn Minnetonka, was honored by LeadingAge Minnesota with the Spirit of Aging Award at LeadingAge Minnesota’s annual Institute & Expo. The Spirit of Aging Award honors an older adult who exemplifies the concept of positive and active aging.

Since August of 2021, several LeadingAge Minnesota members across the state have invited federal and state lawmakers from both political parties into their communities to raise awareness around the growing workforce crisis in long-term care

Employer applications are being accepted for the 2022 Summer Health Care Internship Program (SHCIP). Hospitals, clinics, nursing facilities, home care providers and adult day services facilities are encouraged to participate on behalf of qualified students in their community.

HUD's NSPIRE Demonstration program, which will replace REAC's current physical inspection standards and protocol under the Uniform Physical Condition Standards (UPCS) for the HUD-assisted housing portfolio, is on track to complete over 900 advisory inspections by the end of May 2022. HUD inspectors will continue to work with approximately 4,500 volunteer properties to identify potential adjustments to NSPIRE standards, protocols, and processes, which will then be rolled out to the broader portfolio.

Periodically, CMS raises the Quality Measure (QM) ratings’ thresholds in the Five Star Quality Rating System to promote continuously quality improvement. CMS is implementing a new process for raising QM rating thresholds by increasing the threshold for the average rate of improvement in QM scores by 50% every six months. For example, if there is an average rate of improvement of 2%, the QM rating thresholds would be raised 1%.   

The current round of applications for nursing facility moratorium exceptions has closed, and MDH recently informed LeadingAge that fifteen care centers submitted proposals for this round. A review committee will hear the proposals on May 3 and 4, and the MDH commissioner will announce the approved projects by June 22.

Last week, Governor Tim Walz released an updated supplemental budget that proposes to use the state’s more than $9 billion in general fund surplus. The Governor's proposed budget serves as a negotiating position in final budget conversations. Legislators in the House and Senate majorities will also advance their budget proposals in the upcoming weeks.