Nationally, nursing homes have been devastated by COVID-19, experiencing 2 726 897 COVID-19 cases and 162 874 COVID-19 deaths as of November 28, 2022. Nursing homes were ill equipped for the pandemic; though facilities are required to have infection control staff, only 3% of nursing home staff have taken a basic infection control course. Substantial research has focused on infection control in the acute care setting; however, little is known about the implementation of practices and effective interventions in nursing homes. We proposed an intervention using Project Extensions for Community Health Outcomes (Project ECHO), an evidence-based telementoring model, to connect experts at the Pennsylvania State University (or “Penn State”) with remote nursing home staff and administrators to proactively support evidence-based infection control guideline implementation. This study sought to answer the critical research question of how evidence-based infection control guidelines can be implemented effectively in nursing homes.
