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LeadingAge Minnesota has developed a new resource for members to help clarify the complex and often confusing infectious illness reporting requirements for our nursing home and assisted living members.

The Minnesota Legislature will convene on Jan. 3, 2023. LeadingAge Minnesota has finalized its member-developed, board-approved legislative priorities for the upcoming session. At the top of the list: ensuring providers across the continuum of care have the resources needed to ensure access to care for Minnesota's seniors and pay caregivers the wages they deserve.

At LeadingAge Minnesota, we have always considered our members to be our guiding light. As the field of aging services continues to change, our focus on you and your missions of service to older adults is more important than ever. As a member of this community, your guidance helps us chart our direction as an association and navigate the ways in which we strive to fulfill our mission to enhance and transform the experience of aging.

The Harvard Healthy Building Program and the Lancet COVID-19 Commission Task Force on Safe Work, Safe School, and Safe Travel are hosting a free webinar tomorrow, Friday, Dec. 16, at 10 a.m. titled "Improving Indoor Air Quality in Long Term Care Facilities: Practical Guidance."

For over 50 years, LeadingAge Minnesota business partner member Friends & Co has been creating connections and friendships for older adults. Propelled by the pandemic, the organization has expanded services aimed at loneliness and isolation statewide and redoubled its focus on fostering connection and companionship for happy, healthy aging.

The Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) is conducting a second round of grant funding for HCBS providers supporting rural and underserved communities.

The thirteen edition of the Really Big Book of Nursing Home Regulations is finally here and ready to go! It is now available for order.

We have revised the Assisted Living Emergency Relocation Notice template to include additional information on appeals and to clarify who needs to receive the notice.

Use our new interactive map to find a NextGeneration Nursing Assistant Training Program (NGNA) or the "NextGen" training program near you. The map includes the contact information for each training program to help you get connected with NextGen students.

LeadingAge Minnesota's Data Portal will include an exciting new tool in January – a compensation data portal that allows providers to benchmark their wages for key positions against other providers statewide or a select group of providers in their market area. The compensation data portal also collects information on differentials and bonuses for each position to provide a robust look at overall compensation.

Whenever a nursing home changes ownership, the new owner must apply for an operating license before taking over the operations of an already licensed organization. Aug. 1 amendments to the change of ownership (CHOW) process took effect. The current licensee remains responsible until the new owner is properly licensed. The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) has the updated information and forms and process available.

Please join LeadingAge Minnesota in giving a warm welcome to Kayla Khang. Kayla joins the staff as the Manager of Government Affairs and Policy. She will support our policy and lobbying efforts in St. Paul, including leading our organization's return to in-person Advocacy Day at the Capitol on March 13, 2023.

On Dec. 1, the 2022 Leadership Academy Class of Fellows completed their program year of leadership development. The official graduation for the cohort of 45 leaders will be celebrated at the 2023 Institute & Expo.

Earlier this week, the Minnesota Nursing Association (MNA) nurses and various hospitals came to a tentative agreement that will avert the planned unfair labor practices strike scheduled to start on Sunday, Dec. 11. MNA nurses will work quickly to vote on the tentative agreement Specifics of the official agreements remain unconfirmed, but MNA has released a statement detailing the tentative three-year contracts. 

The Moving Forward Nursing Home Quality Coalition has issued its first recommendations to address the key recommendations outlined in the April 2022 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) report – The National Imperative to Improve Nursing Home Quality: Honoring Our Commitment to Residents, Families, and Staff. 

In response to a USAToday investigative report published on Dec. 1, 2022, examining staffing levels in nursing homes ("Many nursing homes are poorly staffed. How do they get away with it?"), LeadingAge CEO and President Katie Smith Sloan passionately defended the nation's long-term care and skilled nursing operators. She reiterated, "[f]inger pointing and blame helps no one. It's time for a clear-eyed, fact-based approach to ensure older Americans and families can access the quality nursing home care they deserve."

The Department of Human Services (DHS) will send Provider Revalidation notices to HCBS providers with names beginning with S and T at the end of December. Affected settings provide waiver services in home and community-based settings, including Adult Day Services and Assisted Living (Customized Living).

The Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services Division (DHHSD) at the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) has created a series of guides to help service providers understand types of hearing loss and possible accommodations:

Beginning Jan. 2, 2023, there will be an updated Minnesota Nurse Aide Knowledge Test with improved test questions.

LeadingAge Minnesota's exciting new resource, The Workforce Data Portal, gives members a great way to see how they compare to other providers on crucial workforce metrics. Members who have submitted data for the third quarter (July through September) can view reports that provide custom comparisons.

This week, Minnesota's budget forecast for the 2024-2025 biennium showed a $17.6 billion surplus, the largest in Minnesota's history. Most of the forecasted budget is "carryforward," meaning that about $12 billion of the surplus money will only be able to be spent on one-time investments.

Join us on Tuesday, Dec. 6, at 1 p.m. to learn about the NextGeneration Nursing Assistant (NGNA) program and how your organization can connect with NextGen students. This webinar is for employers who want to learn more about the following:

Saint Therese, a LeadingAge Minnesota member, is partnering with Rasmussen University – Bloomington to help train the next generation of nurses.

Totaling $400,000, 24 workforce grants were awarded to LeadingAge Minnesota members across the state by the LeadingAge Minnesota Foundation this week. The grant program funds staff appreciation, OnTrack Nursing Assistant Training program set-up expenses, and initiatives to improve recruitment, retention, and talent pipeline development.

The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) is now accepting applications for the Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) Employee Scholarship Grant and Loan Forgiveness Program until Jan. 6, 2023.

Members can post their open positions to the AgingServicesJobs.org job board at a reduced rate of only $39 per posting until Dec. 31.

After seven years of successfully supporting the goals of the Long-Term Care Imperative, our joint Face Aging MN campaign has come to a close.

On Nov. 28, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a new QSO memo to hospitals (QSO-23-04-Hospitals) on workplace violence and prevention. While there is no enforcement change for nursing homes within the new memo, one violence prevention expert noted, “[nursing homes] would do well to heed new CMS messaging. The ongoing stress of working short-staffed, and even the holidays themselves, can make healthcare facilities an even more vulnerable environment, safety experts said this week.”

The US Department of Labor (DOL) Wage and Hour Division announced it had recovered more than $28.6 million in back wages and damages for nearly 25,000 workers since it launched a focused initiative in 2021. The effort has led to assessments of almost $1.3 million in civil monetary penalties for employers who willfully violated federal law. The most common violations discovered by investigators were failures to pay overtime or federal minimum wages and misclassifying employees as independent contractors.

An article published on Nov. 15 in the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association (JAMDA) discusses the need to reimagine infection control within nursing homes to keep pace with rising acuity and multiple comorbidities in today’s residents to remain effective.