UCLA research data has shown that a lot of nursing home workers are working at more than one facility and suggests that that situation is one source of the spread of infections, according to the LAist website.
More than 84,000 residents and staff of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities have died from COVID-19, representing 40 percent of all coronavirus fatalities in the U.S., according to Kaiser Family Foundation analysis.
The UCLA study also found that some areas of the country — New Jersey and Florida — had a much higher overlap among nursing homes than others. Some facilities are sharing upwards of 50 to 100 workers. They refer to these highly connected nursing homes as each state's "Kevin Bacon of nursing homes."
"We found that if you're going to see a nursing home outbreak anywhere it's likely to spread to the Kevin Bacon of nursing homes in each state," one researcher said in the article.
Cathryn Jakicic is former healthcare industries editor of FacilitiesNet.com. For more information on hospital campuses and other medical facilities, click here.
