On Wednesday, Minnesota lawmakers introduced legislation aimed at addressing shortages in home health care nurses. It’s a problem Minnesota families who have children with complex medical needs have been dealing with for some time. According to the Minnesota Home Care Association, there are at least 1,000 families looking for home health nurses. 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS first reported on the issue back in January while speaking with the family of Jamie Craven, who is now a year old. He’s spent his entire life in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at M Health Fairview’s Masonic Children’s Hospital, despite having been cleared by doctors to go home back in September.
Visiting Nurse Home & Hospice is selling its Portsmouth headquarters and looking for a new location. The nonprofit home health agency announced it has placed its more than 20,000-square-foot headquarters, located at 1184 East Main Road, on the market with Kirby Properties LLC. The real estate company has listed the building for $3.2 million. “The contemporary model for home health requires a much smaller footprint than it did 28 years ago when we bought this building,” said Jennifer Fairbank, CEO of Visiting Nurse Home & Hospice. “For example, a lot of our space was once used for medical supply storage and housing thousands of paper medical records. Today, most supplies are shipped directly to patients and all of our records are electronic. We simply don’t need to be heating and maintaining a building of this size.”
ProMedica is selling its hospice and home care agencies to an Atlanta-based corporation, according to Gentiva. Gentiva, a hospice and personal care company, said Monday it has signed an agreement to acquire Heartland hospice and home care agencies from ProMedica. Bloomberg reports the deal is valued at $710 million. Our media partner the Blade reports the business includes 120 ProMedica locations that care for about 9,000 patients. “For ProMedica, this transaction is an important step toward simplifying our organizational structure and ensuring our long-term financial strength,” ProMedica CEO Arturo Polizzi told the Blade. “We are pleased to be able to transition these agencies to a trusted industry leader, enabling ProMedica to commit more time, energy, and resources to our core operations.”
March 1 is a significant date for Stillwater Hospice, and now it’s an important one for Kosciusko Home Care and Hospice (KHCH). Tuesday afternoon, the two organizations announced at KHCH, 1515 Provident Drive, Warsaw, that they have combined as one, effective Wednesday, March 1. Glenn Hall, KHCH executive director, said, “Obviously, this is a momentous occasion for our agency here at Kosciusko Home Care and Hospice, and we are beyond excited about establishing our future here in Kosciusko County. For 47 years, Kosciusko Home Care and Hospice has provided home care and hospice services to the residents of Kosciusko County.”
The College of Southern Maryland’s (CSM) Continuing Education and Workforce Development team and the St. Mary’s County Nursing Center (SMNC) are celebrating their three-year partnership that outlasted the crisis that inspired it. As COVID-19 was spreading across the country in 2020, CSM and SMNC collaborated to create solutions that upskilled SMNC staff, created a solid workforce pipeline for the center, and produced student-employees who continue to provide focused patient care. SMNC began hiring entry-level employees as Residential Care Assistants (RCAs), who were trained to perform many tasks of a Geriatric Nursing Assistant (GNA). While working as RCAs, employees were also students in CSM’s GNA program with support from CSM’s Workforce Development Sequence Scholarship. With the scholarship, student-employees were compensated to study, attend class, and receive mentoring to hone their skills in the classroom and in the workforce.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released a proposed rule (Proposed Rule) intended to require additional disclosures related to the ownership and management of nursing facilities that accept federal reimbursement. Comments to the proposed rule are due April 14, 2023. The Proposed Rule would require Medicare skilled nursing facilities and Medicaid nursing facilities (Nursing Facilities) to disclose information related to members of facilities’ governing bodies; officers, directors, and other managers; and other “disclosable parties.”