One of the many lessons we should have learned from the Covid-19 pandemic is the cost to older adults of loneliness and social isolation. While nearly 900,000 older adults died from the virus, tens of thousands were sickened and may have died from the isolation the pandemic caused. But what have we learned from that tragic experience? Whether older adults [...]
A blue-ribbon panel of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine has issued a scathing report on the state of nursing homes in the US. Operators, owners, regulators, and payors all are failing patients and residents, the report said. “The way in which the United States finances, delivers, and regulates care in nursing home settings is ineffective, inefficient, fragmented, [...]
The influential National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NAS) has called for a major initiative to better integrate heath care and social supports. The group, formerly known as the Institute of Medicine, has published a white paper on the subject that should encourage both policymakers and medical practitioners to pay more attention to the importance of social supports to [...]