COVID-19 Update From Administrator – March 25, 2020
Dear Family and Friends –
Welcome to the second email blast to our families. We’re going to jump into a few areas to bring you up to date and hopefully answer some overall questions you have about our center and more importantly, your loved one. We hope this format works well moving forward.
Activities Recreation– How your loved one is spending their day
- This is a tough one – but overall, we are all adjusting. The visitor restriction placed on our center stipulated that no outside entertainers could perform at our center, as well as the assistance of our volunteers. Additionally, we, just like you, are practicing social distancing, as best as we can. Therefore, activities are taking place – but in smaller groups, using social distancing and even throughout hallways.
- Our alternative visits are up and running. We appreciate your patience as we developed this and continue to work on making it the best possible experience.
- With your written permission, we will post more pictures of your loved on our Facebook page for you to see of them engaged in activities and sharing moments with our staff. If you do not consent to this, we can send you pictures to your phone/email.
- This week we have had several celebrations including a 90th Birthday Celebration as well as a 41 year Anniversary Celebration.
For your loved ones:
- We are taking a full set of resident Vitals each shift along with their O2 saturation level (this is a new CDC recommendation that we have implemented). We are observing also for subtle changes (increased weakness, confusion, agitation).
- Residents with sudden onset of symptoms will be placed on “droplet precautions” until their case can be reviewed.
- We are pulling the privacy curtains that go between the 2 beds in our semi-private rooms.
- Any health care visitor such as hospice nurses, CNA’s will be required to wear a face mask.
- Face masks can be used more than once, based on new CDC guidelines.
Our Employees
An additional measure was added to an existing procedure below to further ensure for everyone’s health.
At the start of each employee’s shift, they are required to
- Sign in
- Get their temperature taken.
- Have their Oxygen saturation taken (this is a new recommendation from CDC and have implemented it)
- Answer a series of questions on their health, their recent travel and if they have been in contact with someone known to have COVID-19
Our employees have been great. We hope you agree with us. They are resilient and compassionate individuals who come in everyday ready to be there for your loved one!
Info@ email
- An added communication tool we are announcing is our “Info@” email address, which is distributed to several department heads, in case you have general questions for our center.
- Beginning this week, we are assigning each of our departments several residents and families to be their lead contact for general communication questions. This contact will work with you to share updates on your loved one; they will check-in with your loved one and can provide a brief update to you, on request. Once your assigned department head gets in-touch with you, you will have their email as a future contact. Please be mindful that they are still doing their daily job, so they may be limited or delayed in their response – and that they may not be a “clinical” staff member who can answer specific clinical questions. Those questions will be routed to our clinicians. We are hoping that this will increase communication from our center to you.
- As the Administrator, please know you can always contact me at 860-489-5801, ext 117.
Moving Forward
- What else would you like to see in future emails each week?
As I have said before, I would like to personally thank you for your patience during this very unusual time we are all facing. This is an unprecedented time for all of us and we appreciate the support and kind words of encouragement we have received. We continue to monitor and look to our state and federal governing bodies on updates for Covid-19. We appreciate the support we have received from families and the general public. We also appreciate the dedication from our employees under these stressful and uncertain times.
Denise Quarles, Administrator