Celebrating National Skilled Nursing Care Week 2021

Long-term care staff are healthcare heroes

In recognition of National Skilled Nursing Care Week 2021, the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion would like to thank the long-term care staff of facilities across the country for the their great work and dedication to caring for and protecting residents during the COVID-19 pandemic. We have heard many stories of strength and commitment to resident safety showing great skills, grit, and resilience during the COVID-19 response.

The COVID-19 response highlighted the important and critical role long-term care staff can play in slowing the spread of COVID-19 illness. Early identification and timely response to a potential COVID-19 outbreak is critical to minimizing the number of people impacted. The regular interaction and relationships staff create with their residents often help to recognize when a resident isn’t feeling well and enables the facility to take the appropriate steps to protect others, including additional residents, staff, and those entering the facility. This connection cannot be underestimated, as those closest to residents many times know when something is amiss and needs attention.

The COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the fact that infection prevention and control needs to be integrated into care delivered in all healthcare settings, including long-term care facilities and that everyone has a responsibility and role to play. There is an essential need for robust training and education for all to protect residents from novel threats like COVID-19, as well as other threats like antibiotic resistance and healthcare-associated infections. CDC continues to learn from the experiences of individuals on the frontline in long-term care facilities, including learning from the information reported into CDC’s National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) and using it to provide actionable steps to protect staff and residents. The theme for National Skilled Nursing Care Week 2021 is “Together Through the Seasons,” and we at CDC look forward to continuing to work with long-term care facilities to provide safe care to all residents.

Reinforcing this message of gratitude and appreciation for long-term care staff, CDC Foundation and The Evelyn and Thomas McKnight Family Fund for Patient Safety have announced, the 2021 McKnight Prize for Healthcare Outbreak Heroes is being awarded to the collective of frontline nursing home staff in the United States.  Appropriately, this award recognizes those who serve and protect patients from harm in the context of healthcare outbreak response. A formal award ceremony will take place at the AHCA/NCAL Annual Convention & Expo in October 2021.

Additional resources and ways to participate in National Skilled Nursing Care Week are available at the AHCA/NCAL website.