While all of healthcare suffered during the Covid-19 pandemic, nursing homes were hit particularly hard.

At the start of the pandemic, nearly half of all Covid deaths were people living or working in long-term care facilities, according to data from KFF. By early 2022, more than 200,000 people had died from the virus, making up roughly 23% of all Covid-related deaths in the US, KFF found.

Part of this can be attributed to the fact that nursing home residents tend to be at higher risk for contracting viruses due to their age, and living close together means it’s easier for illness to spread.

But some of the blame may lie in the fact that nursing homes are chronically short-staffed and run on extremely thin margins—often 3% or less in 2020, according to a survey from the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL), a trade group that represents long-term care facilities.

And the fact that private equity (PE) firms are increasingly buying up nursing homes is making those troubles worse, some experts argue.

See the latest installment in our Quarter Century Project here.—MA

Serena Williams is known as many things. The GOAT in tennis. An Olympic gold medalist. A storied athlete and mother. And as of recently, an enthusiastic GLP-1 user.

More specifically, a Zepbound user.

This recently acquired knowledge is due to the fact that Williams was announced as the new “celebrity patient ambassador” for direct-to-consumer telehealth company Ro on Aug. 21. The goal of this multiyear campaign is to “destigmatize weight loss medication,” Saman Rahmanian, co-founder and chief product officer at Ro, told Healthcare Brew.

Williams was a patient first and then wanted to share her story with others, he added. (Her husband, Alexis Ohanian, who’s also the co-founder of Reddit, is an investor in the company and on Ro’s board of directors.)

“For us, that’s really the dream, when we have a patient who turns into an advocate,” Rahmanian said. “It gives people the permission to take care of their health and see if [a certain treatment] is right for them.”

Could we start seeing more celebs in pharma ads?—NO

Ola Snow, CHRO at Cardinal Health, an Ohio-based company with 50,000 employees, will retire in February 2026, the company revealed to HR Brew.

Snow, who spent 24 years with Cardinal Health and became CHRO in 2018, will be succeeded by Val Pitteroff on Feb. 16, 2026; she joined the company as an HR director in 2002. Pitteroff will work closely with CEO Jason Hollar, and oversee Cardinal Health’s HR, DEI, and community relations efforts.

Cardinal Health has grown its business in recent years, as it focuses on more digital tools and acquisitions, with three acquisition announcements since last fall.

The plan to find Snow’s successor began informally years ago. “You should start thinking about your transition the day that you take the job,” Snow told HR Brew. But she wasn’t serious about retiring until last year. She wanted to stay with the company until Hollar, who took over as CEO in 2022, had been in the role for some time. “I really made a commitment to the organization and the board and to him [Hollar] around helping with this transformation that the company has gone through, and how could culture really accelerate this turnaround situation.”

Keep reading on HR Brew.—KP