"It Made Me Feel Like a Person Again": Benefits of Meals on Wheels-Based Social Connection Programs.

Social isolation and loneliness are associated with negative health outcomes, and these outcomes are exacerbated among older adults who are homebound. To address this issue, Meals on Wheels programs increasingly provide social connection services to clients in addition to home-delivered meals. This descriptive qualitative study examines the impact of three types of social connection programs on the well-being of homebound older adult clients, as well as on the volunteers and staff members who deliver the programs.

Rethinking Infection Control: Nursing Home Administrator Experiences during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Objective: To examine nursing home administrator perspectives of infection control practices in nursing homes at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and characterize lessons learned.

Design: Descriptive qualitative study.

Setting And Participants: Administrators from 40 nursing homes across 8 diverse health care markets in the United States.

Administrator Perspectives on the Impact of COVID-19 on the Administration of the Patient Driven Payment Model in U.S. Skilled Nursing Facilities.

The Patient Driven Payment Model (PDPM) was implemented in U.S. skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) in October 2019, shortly before COVID-19.

Implementing the Patient Driven Payment Model-Perspectives from Skilled Nursing Facility Administrators.

To explore skilled nursing facility (SNF) administrator retrospective perspectives on their preparation for and initial implementation of the Patient Driven Payment Model (PDPM), the new Medicare payment system for SNFs enacted on October 1, 2019. 156 interviews at 40 SNFs in eight U.S.

Examination of Staffing Shortages at US Nursing Homes During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Importance: Staffing shortages have been widely reported in US nursing homes during the COVID-19 pandemic, but traditional quantitative research analyses have found mixed evidence of staffing shortfalls.

Objective: To examine whether nursing home administrator perspectives can provide context for conflicting aggregate staffing reports in US nursing homes during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Design, Setting, And Participants: In a qualitative study, convergent mixed-methods analysis integrating qualitative and quantitative data sets was used.

"It's Not a Sprint, It's a Marathon": Stages of Managing a Nursing Home Throughout the Pandemic.

Objectives: To qualitatively examine the impact of COVID-19 on nursing homes over the course of the pandemic from the perspective of nursing home administrators.

Design: In-depth, semi-structured interviews with nursing home administrators, repeated 3 months apart for a total of 4 each from July 2020 through December 2021.

Settings And Participants: Administrators from a total of 40 nursing homes from 8 health care markets across the United States.

COVID-19 Vaccination Among Skilled Nursing Facility Staff: Challenges and Strategies Identified by Administrators.

COVID-19 vaccinations are critical for mitigating outbreaks and reducing mortality for skilled nursing facility (SNF) residents and staff, yet uptake among SNF staff varies widely and remains suboptimal. Understanding which strategies are successful for promoting staff vaccination, and examining the relationship between vaccination policies and staff retention/turnover is key for identifying best practices. We conducted repeated interviews with SNF administrators at 3-month intervals between July 2020 and December 2021 ( = 156 interviews).

Perspectives of nursing home administrators across the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Objective: To characterize the experiences of nursing home administrators as they manage facilities across the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Data Sources And Study Setting: We conducted 156 interviews, consisting of four repeated interviews with administrators from 40 nursing homes in eight health care markets across the country from July 2020 through December 2021.

Study Design: We subjected the interview transcripts to a rigorous qualitative analysis to identify overarching themes using a modified grounded theory approach to applied thematic analysis.

How Medicare Advantage plans use data for supplemental benefits decision-making.

Objectives: Health care payers are increasingly experimenting with interventions to address social risk factors. With enactment of the 2018 Bipartisan Budget Act, Medicare Advantage (MA) plans have new opportunities to offer supplemental benefits that are not "primarily health-related." This article presents findings from interviews conducted with executives from MA plans regarding plan decision-making processes related to new social risk factor benefits.

A Technology Training Program to Alleviate Social Isolation and Loneliness Among Homebound Older Adults: A Community Case Study.

Despite substantial evidence of the negative health consequences of social isolation and loneliness and the outsized impact on older adults, evidence on which interventions are most effective in alleviating social isolation and loneliness is inconclusive. Further complicating the translation of evidence into practice is the lack of studies assessing implementation and scalability considerations for socialization programs delivered by community-based organizations (CBOs). Our primary objective was to describe the implementation barriers, facilitators, and lessons learned from an information and communication technology (ICT) training program aimed at reducing social isolation and loneliness for homebound older adults in a home-delivered meals program.

Health Care and Community-Based Organization Partnerships to Address Social Needs: Medicare Advantage Plan Representatives' Perspectives.

Payers and providers are increasingly being held accountable for the overall health of their populations and may choose to partner with community-based organizations (CBOs) to address members' social needs. This study examines the opportunities and challenges that health care entities, using Medicare Advantage (MA) plans as an example, encounter when forming these relationships. We conducted interviews with 38 representatives of 17 MA organizations, representing 65% of MA members nationally.

Connecting policy to licensed assisted living communities, introducing health services regulatory analysis.

Objective: To document dementia-relevant state assisted living regulations and their changes over time as they pertain to licensed care settings.

Data Sources: For all states, current directories of licensed assisted living communities and state regulations for each year, 2007-2018, were obtained from state agency websites and Nexis Uni, respectively.

Study Design: We identified multiple types of regulatory classifications for each state and documented the presence or absence of specific dementia care provisions in the regulations for each type by study year.

Medicare Advantage plan representatives' perspectives on Pay for Success.

Objectives: To understand how Medicare Advantage (MA) plan representatives perceive the alternative financing model Pay for Success (PFS) and its potential to address members' social risk factors.

Study Design: Semistructured qualitative interviews designed to understand plan representatives' priorities regarding addressing nonmedical needs of their members, awareness of and experiences with PFS, and thoughts about implementing PFS as a method to address members' nonmedical needs.

Methods: Interviews with 38 upper-management representatives from 17 MA plans, which represent 65% of MA beneficiaries nationally, were conducted from July to November 2018.

Perspectives of Medicare Advantage Plan Representatives on Addressing Social Determinants of Health in Response to the CHRONIC Care Act.

Importance: The passage of the Creating High-Quality Results and Outcomes Necessary to Improve Chronic (CHRONIC) Care Act in 2018 allows Medicare Advantage (MA) plans, which enroll more than one-third of Medicare beneficiaries, greater flexibility to address members' social determinants of health (SDOH) through supplemental benefits.

Objective: To understand MA plan representatives' perspectives on the importance of addressing members' SDOH and their responses to the passage of the CHRONIC Care Act.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This semistructured qualitative interview study conducted via telephone from July 6, 2018, to November 7, 2018, included participants from 17 MA plans that collectively enrolled more than 13 million MA members (>65% of the total MA market).

A novel somatic mutation achieves partial rescue in a child with Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome.

Background: Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome (HGPS) is a fatal sporadic autosomal dominant premature ageing disease caused by single base mutations that optimise a cryptic splice site within exon 11 of the gene. The resultant disease-causing protein, progerin, acts as a dominant negative. Disease severity relies partly on progerin levels.