Pa. gives hospitals, universities $175 million to help nursing homes protect their residents from COVID-19

Nine Pennsylvania hospitals and health systems will receive $175 million to help their local long term care facilities protect their residents from the spread of COVID-19.

The money will be used to help the nursing, personal care and assisted living facilities expand their testing capability and use proven best-practices for things such as preventing and tracing infections.

The effort is called the “Regional Response Health Collaboration Program” and directs money to health systems and universities selected for the program. The amount given to each of six regions is based on their local concentrations of people living in long term care facilities.

In southcentral Pennsylvania, $22.9 will go to Penn State. The other recipients are:

In the southeast, Thomas Jefferson University and the University of Pennsylvania will receive $65.8 million;

In the northeast, Geisinger Clinic and Lehigh Valley Hospital will receive $24 million;

In the northcentral region, Geisinger will receive $9.8 million;

In the southwest, UPMC Community Provider Services will receive $38.9 million;

In the northwest, LECOM Health and UPMC Community Provider Services will receive $13.6 million.

“Through these collaboratives, long-term care facilities will have a network to learn, respond, and prepare for what is ahead in the fight against COVID-19,” state Secretary of Human Services Teresa Miller said in a news release.

About 75% of Pennsylvania’s nearly 7,000 COVID-19 deaths have involved long term care residents who are highly vulnerable because of age and underlying medical conditions.

Pennsylvania has about 45,000 people living in about 1,200 personal care and assisted living facilities, about 80,000 living in 693 skilled nursing facilities.

___

(c)2020 The Patriot-News (Harrisburg, Pa.)

Visit The Patriot-News (Harrisburg, Pa.) at www.pennlive.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.