Proven Strategies for Increasing Immunization Rates in Nursing Homes

Dallas Nelson, MD, CMD, FACP, is a Professor of Medicine at the University of the Rochester in the Division Geriatrics and Aging. She is medical director of the UR Medicine Geriatrics Group, a group that serves about 3000 patients across the spectrum of long term care in the Rochester, New York.  Dr. Nelson serves as a leader of Telehealth sub-committee for Society of Post-Acute and Long Term Care Medicine.  Dr. Nelson has published clinical trials on the use of Telemedicine to reduce Emergency Department Use by Geriatric Homes.  She has a passion for improving the care of the geriatric community.

Nicole Osevala, MD, is an Internal and Geriatric Medicine physician at Penn State Health, Milton S. Hershey Medical Center where she is the Interim Chief of Geriatric Medicine and Medical Director for the Penn State Health Post-Acute Care Service. In her clinical roles, Dr. Osevala cares for older adults in a local nursing home as well as providing geriatric medicine consultation for geriatric trauma patients at Hershey Medical Center. Administratively, Dr. Osevala has championed the creation of a post-acute care network for Penn State Health patients with the goal to improve care transitions, quality of care in nursing homes and ultimately improve outcomes for this vulnerable population. In the hospital, Dr. Osevala launched the inpatient geriatric consult service in 2020, and has convened stakeholders in March 2021 to embark upon the goal of becoming an Age Friendly Health System at the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. Dr. Osevala has led the South Central’s Regional Response Health Collaborative Program, known as RRHCP, the Regional Congregate Care Assistance Team known as RCAT, and currently leads the Resiliency, Infrastructures, Supports and Empowerment (RISE) program which supports 90 nursing homes and 150 personal care homes across 13 counties in South Central PA in Covid-19 outbreak response, staff education, emergency management preparation and community building to create a sustainable response to crises in long term care.