Providers will soon be required to report potential infectious disease outbreaks directly to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), writes McKnight’s Long-Term Care News.
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Seema Verma said Wednesday that changes would be coming for nursing homes in response to the coronavirus pandemic. “[Nursing homes] do report this information to the local health departments, but we’re going to be enhancing our reporting requirements to get more real-time information about where there’s outbreaks across the country in nursing homes. So basically, enhancing their reporting directly to CDC.” The new reporting requirements will help the agency focus its surveillance efforts, according to Verma. She also stressed the importance of having a strong surveillance system in place to help respond to future infections before they spread within a facility. Guidance on the new reporting requirements should be available for providers by the end of this week.
Read more:
- McKnight’s Long-Term Care News: https://www.mcknights.com/news/cms-to-require-nursing-homes-to-report-infections-directly-to-cdc/