While nursing home vaccination rates reversed the scenario, the pandemic has, in many ways, made the already somewhat perilous future of nursing homes even less certain.

So what’s the next step for retirement homes?

In the ninth episode of the NewsMD podcast “The Health Variant,” host and health correspondent Jeremy Fugleberg interviews what may seem like a surprising source on this subject: Tu-Uyen Tran.

Tran, a former reporter and editor of Forum Communications, is now a senior writer for the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. He recently delved into the data and spoke with industry experts to report on the state of play of nursing homes in the region, where many rural counties only have one home. nursing, or none at all.

What he discovered shows how uncertain the future is for nursing homes, but also charts the way forward. Find Tran’s reports on nursing homes at the Minneapolis Fed website.

The “The Health Variant” podcast explores important health topics for the region – such as COVID-19, cannabis and telehealth – introduces listeners to must-see places and people and offers behind-the-scenes reporting.

NewsMD is a brand of Forum Communications that focuses on health and healthcare reporting primarily in the Upper Midwest, including coverage of industry news, research, trends, technology , economic and political issues.

“The Health Variant” is available on major podcast apps, including:

For comments or suggestions for podcast episode topics, contact Fugleberg at [email protected] or on Twitter: @jayfug.