COVID-19 Regional Response Health Collaboratives to Strengthen Support for LTC Facilities

The Regional Response Health Collaborative (RRHC) program, a statewide program providing clinical, operational, and educational support to long-term care facilities preparing for or facing outbreaks of COVID-19 at their facility, is available to providers in the Office of Developmental Programs (ODP) system.

The RRHC program was designed to bolster Pennsylvania’s support for long-term care facilities and their residents and staff. Launched in late July, the RRHC program was established to provide clinical support, technical assistance, and education to long-term care facilities as they work to prevent and mitigate the spread of COVID-19. The RRHC is available 24 hours a day and seven days a week to support the nearly 2,000 nursing facilities, personal care homes, assisted living residences, and private intermediate care facilities in Pennsylvania and the residents they serve. Eleven health systems were selected to serve six regions across Pennsylvania.

Supports provided can be assistance with testing, assessing a facility’s preparedness, staffing support, rapid response deployment to facilities, personal protective equipment (PPE) support, testing to ensure PPE is properly fitted, and questions or concerns requiring consultation.

Yesterday Secretary Miller was joined by Janet Tomcavage (see press release here), the Executive Vice President and Chief Nurse Executive at Geisinger, who leads the Geisinger RRHC in Northeast Pennsylvania. Along with leadership from the Department of Human Services (DHS) and the Department of Health (DOH) who are overseeing the RRHCs, they discussed their work in supporting facilities in Northeast Pennsylvania and why the program must continue to be supported in 2021.