Working on Florida’s State Strategic Team

With 35+ years in Long-Term Care Administration, Deborah Franklin ’20, Master of Health Administration (MHA), serves as Senior Director of Quality for the Florida Healthcare Association. Her MHA Capstone Research: COVID: Governmental Actions Impact Nursing Home Outcomes. She speaks to us about her research.

“The research that I did was based on different state’s government actions concerning COVID-19 and then looked at the COVID-19 outcomes. I chose states that were comparable in size, some in the South, North, East, and West of the United States for comparisons. The research compared the government’s action, along with the timeliness of the action and then the outcomes. Actions such as limiting exposure by limiting visitation to long-term care facilities, requiring testing of staff and residents, creating COVID facilities so that no COVID cases would be brought into the nursing home to allow the spread were actions that helped to prevent the spread. Actions such as requiring nursing homes to admit COVID patients, not allowing nursing homes to restrict visitors were actions that had negative outcomes. The research showed that some governments were following CDC guidance by focusing on the most at risk when making decisions, while other states did not.”

“As Sr Director of Quality for Florida Health Care Association, I have been on the state strategic team working to keep COVID out of the nursing homes and assisted living centers. In the beginning, once the Governor declared the state of emergency and issued the first order to stop visitation, I began working 12-15 hour days, seven days a week. It was important to help the providers set up systems, education, screening forms, and such to quickly implement the order. Following that, Florida implemented an emergency staff program, resident care attendant that FHCA had to quickly develop for the members to be able to train emergency staff. I worked with the hospital association closely helping to collaborate on safe transfers. We developed a transfer form for hospitals to use to communicate the COVID testing/exposure to the post-acute provider. I must admit, it was a challenge to complete my schoolwork during the COVID pandemic but, in one sense it helped as it took my mind off COVID for a short time to do the work.”