On January 20, 2020, CDC confirmed the first US COVID-19 case in Washington State. Over a month later, a nursing home in King County, Washington, had a COVID-19 outbreak with a devastating outcome and 34 deaths. Which nursing home in California would be next? How can we protect ourselves, our families, colleagues, and most importantly our vulnerable nursing home residents? Without enough knowledge about the virus, lack of testing supplies, and shortage of protective equipment such as masks, gowns, face shields, and even gloves, nursing homes had real challenges to face in months to come. Those questions were frightening for many of us in long-term care, especially when we did not know where to find the answers.
CALTCM leadership recognized the urgency and the severity of the matter and on March 9, 2020, CALTCM had its first live webinar to share the latest information regarding COVID-19 in nursing homes and to address some of the concerns. The number of participants and the positive feedback encouraged CALTCM to continue our free COVID-19 webinars. Many regional and national experts from different disciplines shared their knowledge at the “CALTCM COVID-19 Webinar Series” covering a wide range of topics from crisis management and resiliency to vaccination and therapeutics. By March 2022, over 7000 devices were connected to 59 live webinars. Based on the initial data, 89% of the attendees were from California, and 795 nursing homes and 60 universities were among those attendees.
CALTCM COVID-19 webinars tackled COVID-related challenges in real and shared important, timely knowledge with attendees, and kept the webinars interactive by allowing attendees to participate in open microphone format as well as Q&A. The series created great opportunities for people who work in long-term care settings to get together, learn from each other, share their challenges and knowledge, and feel like a family. It’s fair to say that the webinars generated something positive from the most challenging global health crisis of the century.
All COVID-19 Webinar Series recordings are available on CALTCM's website as a member benefit, links below for quick access.