Messiah Village, a nursing home experts say does things right, takes a big hit from COVID-19

Administrators at Messiah Village say that while they haven’t been able to pinpoint the precise causes of a widespread outbreak of COVID-19 cases at the Upper Allen Township facility this month, it is proof that there are no real guarantees of safety when a pandemic is raging like this.

The home - which had a resident count of 149 in its skilled care facility earlier this month, according to state Department of Health statistics - reported 78 active COVID-19 cases among residents as of Monday, along with 50 staff members. Members of the Pennsylvania National Guard have been temporarily deployed to help plug holes on the staff side in the nursing, dietary and housekeeping departments.

Twelve residents have died because of their infections, the home has reported.

Spokeswoman Katie Andreano said that while the first case in the recent outbreak was detected three weeks ago, the surge in cases really occurred right around Election Day, with new positive cases being measured in the double digits on several days since then.

Her hope is Messiah Village has seen the worst - the number of new residents testing positive was down to four on Monday, according to the home’s Web site. Eleven nursing home staffers have recovered from the virus. None of the residents are listed as recovered, but facility officials said they are hopeful several soon will.

But it will be a while until the home is back on a normal footing, Andreano said, especially with so many staff members on quarantine.

At present, all nursing employees in the skilled-care center are being tested for coronavirus twice-weekly, Andreano said. All other staff and all residents are being tested once a week. Immediate tests are also run on anyone who is showing potential COVID-19 symptoms.

Residents who have tested positive have been relocated to a specific COVID care unit where they receive specific care and are quarantined from others.

Andreano also said the facility is well-stocked with personal protective equipment, with all employees wearing masks and face shields.

Statewide leaders in the nursing home industry say the outbreak at Messiah Village is scary proof that the virus can penetrate even those facilities that - according to the records - do things well.

“Since the very start of the pandemic it’s been clear that viral spread in long-term care facilities is a reflection of the communities around it,” said Adam Marles, president and CEO of LeadingAge PA, a trade association for non-profit nursing homes in Pennsylvania.

"The single greatest risk is asymptomatic staff who are hopefully being vigilant and doing their very best to follow protocols outside of the building, coming back and - notwithstanding testing, not withstanding screening - bringing it in.

“So as long as we have significant spread in the general public, the risk is going to be great for long-term care facilities,” Marles said.

The state Department of Health reported a total of 5,900 new positive cases of coronavirus Tuesday. This was the highest daily increase of cases on record.

Developed in the 1970s as a successor to the old Messiah Home in Harrisburg, Messiah Village is now a continuing care community operated by the non-profit Messiah Lifeways, with independent living cottages and apartments, and a personal care and skilled-care nursing facilities that share the main medical building.

The state Department of Health inspected the facility on July 9 for compliance with COVID-19 infection control guidances and found it to be in compliance with no deficiencies. Messiah Lifeways CEO Curtis Stutzman said DOH also conducted a follow-up infection control survey Nov. 10, and again found no deficiencies. That report is too recent to show up on the state’s Web site.

Three “minimal harm” deficiencies were noted in the home’s last pre-pandemic inspection, which occurred in January, involving food service issues, a failure to discard medication on its expiration date, and one case of a failure to use a piece of medical equipment as ordered by a doctor.

But Messiah Village is not a home that has appeared on any lists of troubled facilities, and it weathered the first wave of COVID-19 infections this spring with just one case (as of May 8) among residents and staff.

“Messiah staffs better than most provider. They have, to my knowledge, lower than average staff turnover. They invest heavily in all the things that make care better for the people who live there,” said Marles. “Unfortunately, these providers who are best in class are still getting hit, even though they’re doing everything right."

Marles said while better treatments and better information about COVID-19 have lowered death rates across nursing homes generally from the initial wave this spring, the current spikes in new cases argue for renewed vigilance and attention to “stop-the-spread” strategies by the general public.

On two separate days last week, new COVID-19 case counts in nursing homes statewide exceeded 400; that was the first time that threshold had been breached since early May.

“We absolutely need the public to follow hand washing, mask-wearing, social distancing best practices to make sure that we keep people safe because this is not over," Marles said.

While nursing home residents will be top priority recipients for a new vaccine, there is no date certain when those will be available, and the latest surge is upon us. And because studies suggest asymptomatic spread is the hardest-to-stop portal into nursing homes for the virus, it takes everyone working together to stop it.

"The risk is still extraordinarily great. And particularly as we are all going to be indoors more, we have to be more careful than ever to show that our elders are critically important to our communities,” Marles said.

Earlier Tuesday, state Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine announced a tightening of masking protocols for Pennsylvanians, as well as new testing or quarantine requirements for people travelling in and out of the state.

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