Editorial Staff

How did COVID impact Massachusetts’ long-term care facilities?

/in , , , , , , , , /by Editorial Staff
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on
LinkedIn
+

In April 2021, the Department of Public Health (DPH) removed from the COVID-19 Response Reporting Dashboard its former count of long-term care deaths, which was then greater than 9,000 – more than half of all reported COVID deaths at that time.  In place of the count of long-term care deaths was a vague reference to various separate reports, one of which contained a total number of eldercare deaths that was thousands lower than the previously displayed number.  

Pioneer reported this abrupt and substantial change in its May 2021 white paper, “A Brighter Dashboard: State Should Cut Confusion and Clarify Eldercare Cases and Deaths.”  The paper asked, understandably, for a clear explanation:  What counting methodology produced the 9,000-plus figure?  And, if thousands of those deaths are no longer considered long-term care deaths, what are representative examples of such deaths? Addressing this question would help the public understand what was removed from the former total.

Pioneer pressed the Executive Office of Health and Human Services and DPH for such an explanation orally in virtual meetings and in writing through 2021, and was unsuccessful in those efforts.  Subsequently, Pioneer has filed this Public Records Act request.  How COVID impacted Massachusetts’ long-term care facilities is a matter of obvious importance, both on principle (the public has a right to know the facts), and for purposes of evaluating – and where possible improving – public policy.  The state’s amendment of its long-term care death count may have been appropriate – but the public has the right to evaluate that question, and cannot do so absent a better explanation of what happened and why.

Read Public Records Request

Get Our COVID-19 News, Tips & Resources!

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Related Content:

Patient-centered Model Outshines Insurance-centered Healthcare during Pandemic

0 Comments
/
Joe Selvaggi talks with Pioneer Institute Senior Fellow Josh Archambault about his newest research paper entitled, "Direct Health Care Agreements: A New Option For Patient-Centered Care That Costs Less and Reduces Provider Burn-out" and how this emerging service model provided its patients with comprehensive health service throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

Study: Massachusetts Should Embrace Direct Healthcare Options

Especially in the COVID era, many are looking to alleviate the increased burden on the healthcare system.  One solution is direct healthcare (DHC), which can provide more patient-centered care at affordable prices and is an effective model to increase access to care for the uninsured, underinsured and those on public programs like Medicaid, according to a new study published by Pioneer Institute.

Pioneer Institute Statement on Governor Baker’s New COVID Restrictions

Read Pioneer Institute's public statement about Gov. Charlie Baker's new executive orders related to the state’s reopening plan that will go into effect on Nov. 6, issued in response to a significant uptick in COVID infections in Massachusetts,

Voting for Health: Party Opinions, Election Results & the Healthcare Policy Implications of Election 2020

0 Comments
/
Join Host Joe Selvaggi as he discusses with Harvard Professor Bob Blendon his New England Journal of Medicine Special Report, "Implications of the 2020 Election for U.S. Health Policy," which covers broad differences in both party’s view of the role of government in health care and what the election results will mean for Americans.

Hockey Sidelined Again

0 Comments
/
After months on the sidelines, youth hockey players across the state eagerly laced up their skates in August. Under current youth and amateur sports guidelines, locker rooms operate at 50 percent capacity, only one spectator should attend per player, and players wear masks on the bench. Unlike in MIAA high school sports, players do not wear facemasks while they play, except during faceoffs. 

Survey: Consumers Want Healthcare Price Information, But Few Realize It’s Available

Great strides have been made to increase healthcare price transparency through online cost estimator tools and a state law that requires providers to give out price information. Yet despite the eagerness of consumers to access prices and out-of-pocket costs, many are unaware that such information is available and don’t know how to access it, according to survey results published by Pioneer Institute.

Staving Off Disaster: Lessons from Covid Applied to the Epic Battle Against Drug Resistant Microbes

0 Comments
/
Join Hubwonk host Joe Selvaggi and Pioneer Institute’s Bill Smith as they discuss with inspirational public health advocate Gunnar Esiason the findings of his latest white paper, "Antimicrobial Resistance: Learning From the current health crisis to inform another."  The episode looks at the challenges to global health presented by evolving drug resistant diseases and how the lessons learned from COVID-19 could potentially save millions of lives.

Getting Nursing Home Care Right

Pioneer Institute has long recognized that seniors deserve the best of care and that innovative policy solutions are necessary to ensure that this population enjoys a high quality of life in their later years. In the 1990s, early 2000s and most recently in 2017, the Institute dedicated Better Government Competition topics to policy issues related to aging in America. Our goal each time was to find solutions and to take advantage of new innovations that would improve the quality of life and care for the elderly.