Greater investment in proper infrastructure, including private rooms and adequate staffing, likely would have gone a long way in protecting long-term care residents from COVID-19 outbreaks, an international group of researchers has found.
The 17-person panel of experts, who met late last year, published their findings earlier this month in the JAMDA, the Journal of Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine.
Among the findings was that designing smaller, more homelike spaces would minimize the spread of viruses while promoting better health and quality of life for residents. In one simulation study by researchers in Ontario, for example, investigators found that 31% of infections and 31% of deaths could have been prevented if all Ontario long-term care residents had had single rooms.
“The built environment was the major determinant of outbreak severity,” said George Heckman, M.D., a professor in Waterloo’s School of Public Health and Health Systems and Schlegel Research Chair in Geriatric Medicine with the Research Institute for Aging. “We need to distinguish between small-scale living and small-scale housing, using architectural features to create uncrowded and home-like spaces, but within a sufficiently resilient infrastructure to avoid critical staff shortages such as those experienced by some very small homes in Italy and the United States.”
Heckman added that policymakers must reimagine long-term care infrastructure in a post-pandemic world, keeping in mind that smaller homes support better resident outcomes and are more resilient against infectious outbreaks.
“New large-scale long-term care home developments should be strongly discouraged,” he said.
Other factors that would improve resident well-being and curb the spread of viral infections include a dedicated infection control officer in all long-term care homes, proper staffing conditions and high-quality assurance frameworks, the analysis found.
