gms | German Medical Science

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has a huge impact on healthcare delivery. At the start of the pandemic the focus of (media) attention was on intensive care units in hospitals, after a while it appeared that the influence on nursing homes was overlooked.

Objectives: As a preparation on the second wave of infections: to gain insight into what went well and what may be improved in nursing home care during the first COVID-19 pandemic in terms of: organization of care, collaboration, communication, and experiences of residents/family and professionals.

Design: A questionnaire was developed by an academic nursing home network in the east of the Netherlands, UKON, and sent to their 15 member organizations.

Results: The questionnaire was filled out by 59 respondents; 12 nurses, 14 (para)medics, 15 managers, 5 policy makers, 2 directors, 11 others. Themes were:

1.

Prevention, quarantine, isolation and cohort;

2.

Personal protection equipment;

3.

Fear for infection;

4.

Experiences residents/family;

5.

Experiences professionals;

6.

Communication within and between teams;

7.

Communication and policy in the organization.

Among professionals there was a feeling of proud, solidarity and shared responsibility. At the same time there was a fear for infection among professionals and the ban for visitors was experienced as undesirable. The care team focused on wellbeing and a meaningful day schedule for residents besides direct care provision.

Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic entails great challenges for nursing homes. Positive learning aspects were more equality between different care professionals and an increased responsibility for residents’ wellbeing by nursing care team members.

Conflict of interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.