Nevada State Ombudsman, Jennifer Williams-Woods, is Interviewed on Handling Complaints from Afar During COVID-19

June 15, 2020

When long-term care Ombudsmen make in-person visits to facilities they can use their five senses to ensure that everything is as it should be: Do the residents look okay? Do they have any concerning bruises? Is there something the residents are trying to communicate non-verbally? Does the room smell okay? But in the time of coronavirus, which has spread like wildfire through many of the nation’s nursing homes, that is no longer an option for the staff of Nevada’s Long Term Care Ombudsman Program, who were pulled out of the facilities in early March, even before many of the facilities shut their doors to visitors. Jennifer Williams-Woods, Nevada State Long-Term Care Ombudsman, said she wanted to make sure that her staff wasn’t the cause of any outbreaks in those facilities.

“My staff, they love the residents and love what they do,” Williams-Woods said. “It would’ve devastated us.” So far, more than a quarter of COVID-19 deaths and about 13 percent of cases statewide have been in congregant living facilities, most of those in skilled nursing and assisted living facilities. The data show that outbreaks of the virus in a small number of facilities have been responsible for the lion’s share of cases and deaths. While the shift has kept residents safer, it’s made the staff’s jobs more challenging, Williams-Woods said. When they receive a complaint, the staff has to rely on phone calls, coupled with video chats, to investigate; the documents they would have asked for in person are now faxed over or emailed by the facility. Additionally, Ombudsman staff might notice something awry or a resident might share something with them during a routine in-person visit to a facility.

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