On November 17, 2020, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) officially recognized 1,092 nursing homes where at least 50% or more of their staff have completed the CMS training designed to help staff combat the spread of COVID-19 in nursing homes. Approximately 12.5% of nursing home staff in this country have taken this training. CMS is very pleased that these facilities have taken the critical step of completing the latest training regarding infection control, vaccine distribution, and other topics.
The free COVID-19 training modules available on the CMS website for frontline nursing home staff and management has been available since August 25, 2020. This training includes five specific modules designed for frontline clinical staff and ten designed for nursing home management personnel. The training modules include topics such as infection control, screening and surveillance, personal protective equipment (PPE) usage, caring for individuals with dementia during a pandemic, and other modules with an emphasis on infection control. The training can be accessed on the CMS Quality, Safety, and Education portal at this link: https://qsep.cms.gov/welcome.aspx
If a nursing home’s staff are unsure which training module best fits their needs, CMS is offering an online self-assessment tool to help staff identify their needs and to suggest the appropriate training modules that best reflect those needs. A certificate of completion is offered for each completed training course. This site can be accessed here: http://www.qioprogram.org/
The list of nursing homes at which at least 50% or more of their staff having completed the CMS COVID-19 training can be viewed at this link: https://www.cms.gov/files/document/covid-nursing-home-facilities-training-50-achievement-list.pdf
Issue
Failure to provide the most updated CMS nursing home guideline training on COVID-19 for management and staff could result in inadequate infection control practices that actually facilitate the spread of COVID-19 to residents and staff. This may be considered provision of substandard quality of care in violation of CMS and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) requirements, and result in citations and fines for noncompliance.
Discussion Points
- Review policies and procedures in the Infection Prevention and Control Program to ensure they contain the most recent CMS and CDC requirements. Assign all management and staff members to complete the designated CMS COVID-19 training modules. Ask employees to save their certificates of completion of the COVID-19 training modules and to provide a copy to the Staff Development/Education Department.
- Monitor the completion rates of the CMS training for management and staff. All certificates of completion for the COVID-19 training modules should be retained and kept in the employee’s education file.
