Aid runs out for program to support long-term care facilities.
Wolf administration officials said Wednesday the state does not have the money to maintain a key feature of its response to coronavirus outbreaks in Pennsylvania’s nursing homes, and is working to retain a short-term, scaleddown model now that federal funding ran out.
Human Services Secretary Teresa Miller told reporters that the Wolf administration is running a scaled-down version of a program that distributed $175 million in federal coronavirus aid to 11 regional health systems or health organizations to help contain outbreaks in nursing homes.
Lehigh Valley Health Network, which participated in the program, is no longer involved but is continuing to provide support to nursing homes, officials said. An LVHN spokesperson was unable to comment.
Miller said the partnership helped save lives in the state’s roughly 2,000 long-term care facilities.
“Outbreaks were smaller, shorter and less severe,” she said.
Also Wednesday, Lehigh County announced that Executive Phillips Armstrong, Commissioner Dan Hartzell and Director Jason Cumello received the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine along with resident Jean Larrison in the first of three three-day vaccination clinics at the county’s Cedarbrook nursing home in South Whitehall Township.
Armstrong and Hartzell are members of the governing body of Cedarbrook and were invited to receive the vaccine as part of the effort to increase its acceptance, county spokesperson Laura Grammes said. Cumello said the county is working with Walgreens, which provided the vaccinations, to schedule clinics for Cedarbrook’s Fountain Hill campus soon.
The state’s Regional Response Health Collaboration program provided assessments of COVID-19 readiness and infection control procedures through onsite visits, a 24/7 call center for clinical consultation and technical assistance, universal testing and rapid response teams when an outbreak was identified.
Funding for the program through the federal coronavirus relief act was not renewed in the stimulus bill Congress passed last month, but Miller said Gov. Tom Wolf ’s administration will keep asking the federal government for money to continue the program.
“The Wolf administration is committed to helping long-term care facilities but can’t do it without more federal aid,” she said.
In the meantime, the state is using up to $12 million through the Federal Emergency Management Agency to maintain rapid response services through Feb. 28
and another $28 million over the coming months to support testing, officials said.
Under the scaled-down program, the remaining 10 regional health systems will continue supporting long-term care facilities as Regional Congregate Care Assistance Teams in conjunction with medical staffing contractors General Healthcare Resources and Maxim.
One key difference will be the duration and size of a response involving staffing support, said Keara Klinepeter, a Health Department official.
Fewer support staff would be deployed and they would stay for three
to five days, rather than periods of about two weeks under the federally funded program, Klinepeter said.
“We’re trying to achieve efficiencies wherever we can and spend the limited dollars that we have wisely,” Klinepeter said.
Call centers will remain available and testing assistance will be available as resources permit through Health Department contractors.
The teams also will work closely with Curative testing, which provides a self-administered oral COVID-19 test that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
has permitted under an emergency use authorization.
Contact tracing will be turned over to county health departments or the state and assessments will be done virtually rather than on-site, she said.
More than 740,000 people have tested positive in Pennsylvania and more than 18,400 have died, including almost 10,000 in long-term care facilities, according to state data.