Gov. Whitmer creates nursing home task force

Jun. 26--LANSING -- A new state bipartisan task force aims to protect nursing home residents and staff from contracting COVID-19, just as a testing order is set to begin.

On Friday Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced the Michigan Nursing Homes COVID-19 Preparedness Task Force will work within the state's Department of Health and Human Services, to analyze nursing home data, make policy recommendations and release periodic reports.

The state's data on COVID-19 infections among nursing home residents has come under repeated criticism from lawmakers, family members of nursing home residents and others.

DHHS Director Robert Gordon previously said his department's data was underreporting cases and at one point in May the state's dashboard was taken offline so mistakes could be corrected, the Record-Eagle previously reported.

Executive Order 2020-135 signed Friday creates the task force, and Executive Order 2020-136 maintains current restrictions on visitation to health care facilities, residential care facilities, congregate care facilities, and juvenile justice facilities, but authorizes DHHS to gradually re-open visitation as circumstances permit.

The orders are effective immediately and continue through July 24.

In the meantime, nursing homes in northern Michigan are not among those given a temporary pass on COVID-19 testing obligations, and at least one local facility administrator said that's OK.

"That weekly testing mandate is a logistical nightmare," Marna Robertson, administrator of Meadow Brook Care Facility in Antrim County said Friday. "Some of those downstate facilities have 300 employees or more and giving them extra time was practical and gracious."

Gordon signed an order June 15 requiring nursing homes to test all staff and all residents who agreed to be tested by June 29.

If a facility received a single positive test result, or was located in Regions 1-5 or 7 of Whitmer's reopening plan map, weekly testing was mandated, the order stated.

Northern Michigan is Region 6 and the Upper Peninsula is Region 8.

A memo on Thursday from Gordon to nursing home administrators promises not to take enforcement action against facilities in Regions 1-5 or 7 if they don't meet the June 29 deadline, as long as they test by July 17.

Facilities like Meadow Brook, in Region 6, as well as those in the Upper Peninsula, are still expected to test staff and residents on the original time table.

Robertson supports testing, said it's doable by the deadline, and predicted the effort will turn up new positive cases of the virus.

"My gut is, I do think as a state we're going to see that," she said. "It's summertime, people are more mobile, we have people migrating up here, our exposure risk is going up and God knows where people have been."

Seven new cases of the virus were found in a long term care facility in Leelanau County, the Benzie Leelanau District Health Department reported Thursday.

Six new cases were found in residents and staff of Grandvue Medical Care Facility in East Jordan, the Heath Department of Northwest Michigan reported Friday.

Both facilities recently worked with the National Guard to conduct mass testing of residents and staff, according to the health departments in each area.

Meadow Brook staff set up a tent near the facility's garage and worked with the National Guard June 17 to test staff. Residents who agreed to be tested were tested by staff and results are trickling in, she said.

So far, 45 of nearly 200 tests, have all come back negative, Robertson said.

Grand Traverse Pavilions in Traverse City is also in Region 6, and Director of Clinical Services Rose Coleman told the facility's governing board her staff would begin testing Monday.

"We should be done by Wednesday morning," Coleman said. "We have no reason to think that we have any resident with any sign or symptom of COVID-19. We have tested over 50 residents due to admission or readmission." All came back negative, she added.

The plan for testing residents was to be vetted with nursing administration and shared with residents and their families, Coleman said.

The American Healthcare Association and the National Center for Assisted Living calculated it would cost about $440 million to test every nursing home resident and employee in the U.S.

To test those in Michigan would cost $12.3 million, their figures show.

The cost of testing residents is paid for by Medicare, Medicaid or private insurance, said Pavilions CEO Kory Hansen. The cost of testing nursing home administrators, registered nurses and other professional staff may be covered but other employees are not, he said.

The cost of testing nurse's aids, food service workers and other frontline staff is not covered, and while the state is currently picking up the tab, Hansen wondered if this would be the case should weekly testing be required.

"Insurance won't cover mass testing so the state is supposedly picking up the tab on those staff," Hanson told DHHS board members Friday. "We can see how that would add up if it becomes a weekly routine. I don't know what the state's intentions are, but at least the first round is covered."

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