Texas nursing homes

A glimpse of the 2021 AARP Texas legislative agenda, which includes advocacy related to nursing homes and other long-term care facilities and a host of consumer-related issues.

A new AARP dashboard shows how Texas nursing homes are handling the coronavirus pandemic, which could provide state officials with useful insights.

As community spread decreases, Gov. Greg Abbott amended visitation rules for long-term care facilities. Associate Commissioner Michelle Dionne-Vahalik spells out what these changes mean for visiting loved ones.

Austin Public Health, the city’s primary public health agency, released its new Long-Term Care Facility Dashboard. The tool displays an array of statistics, including the total number of cases and deaths associated with long-term care facilities, a splash of colorful graphs that show the cases for staff and residents by symptom onset date, demographic breakdowns of staff and resident cases, and a list of facility names in the Austin-area with the numbers of COVID-19 cases in each of those facilities.

In a Facebook Live conversation with AARP Texas Director Tina Tran, Alexa Schoeman of the Texas Office of the Long-term Care Ombudsman discusses how to register and cast your ballot in a long-term care facility in Texas.

A commentary by AARP Texas State Director Tina Tran

With nearly half of all deaths in Texas related to COVID-19 occurring among nursing home residents and staff, advocates at AARP Texas are encouraging those with loved ones in long-term care facilities to check regularly on the loved ones’ health and wellbeing.

The following is a report from Roz Brown of the Public News Service (TX):

AARP Texas voiced support Thursday (May 7) for an Austin City Council resolution that calls for more resources to combat the high numbers of COVID-19 cases in area nursing homes.

With nursing homes and other long-term care facilities hit hard by the coronavirus crisis, AARP Texas is holding virtual meetings with members of Texas’ congressional delegation to urge more help for older Americans and their families.