As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, professor of health care policy David Grabowski, PhD, spoke with Tradeoffs podcast about the care of COVID-positive patients after the hospital.

Many patients recovering from COVID-19 still require serious medical care. When hospital beds are needed to treat new patients, recovering COVID patients will need to be transferred to another location. Some states have ordered nursing homes to take in COVID-positive patients. These facilities have been told to isolate the new patients from other residents and patients.

“If you think about a nursing home or other long-term care setting, who lives there? It’s individuals who are older, individuals with high levels of chronic illness, and this virus has been incredibly harmful for older adults, for those with chronic illnesses,” Grabowksi told host Dan Gorenstein.

Grabowski suggested that mandating nursing homes admit COVID-positive patients is bad policy and that we need to be strategic in building post-acute capacity and capability. He notes that transferring COVID-positive patients from the hospital to skilled nursing facilities or long-term care hospitals that exclusively treat COVID patients could be effective. Grabowski also suggests creating new skilled nursing facilities within hotels and dormitories.

“I feel like with coronavirus, we’ve been playing catch up from the very beginning,” Grabowski said, “We were obviously behind on testing. We’ve been behind on physical distancing. We’ve been behind on building enough hospital ICU beds. Post-acute care is actually an opportunity for us to get ahead.”

For more on post-hospital care for COVID-19 patients, see Dr. Grabowski’s recent JAMA Viewpoint on this topic.