New Covid Update
Covid Update
To all Chautauqua Residents, Families, and Friends;
We are happy to announce NEW guidance that has been issued regarding visitation in long term care facilities! These guidelines will take effect March 12, 2021.
As with our previous visits, we are guided by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Iowa Department of Public Health and Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals to develop visitation guidelines – we feel we have developed safe and appropriate guidelines that will be of benefit to everyone.
We would like to remind everyone involved with visits that if you are experiencing any COVID-19 related symptoms or if you have had close contact with someone with COVID-19 infection in the prior 14 days regardless of your vaccination status to please cancel your visit to protect the health and safety of all of the residents and staff in our facilities. The most common symptoms related to COVID-19 are: cough, shortness of breath, fever, chills, muscle or body aches, vomiting, diarrhea, and loss of taste or smell.
As COVID vaccinations continue to be administered in the public and most of our residents, tenants and staff have received the vaccine, it is strongly encouraged that anyone visiting the facilities become vaccinated when they have the opportunity. At this time, CMS continues to recommend maintaining physical distancing and conducting visits outdoors whenever possible, this continues to be the safest way to prevent the spread of COVID-19 particularly if either part has not been fully vaccinated. Fully vaccinated is defined as a person who is > 2 weeks following receipt of the second dose in a 2-dose series, or > 2 weeks following receipt of one dose of a single dose vaccine per the CDC public health recommendations for vaccinated persons.
Listed below are the guidelines for indoor visitation. Please remember that if we have a positive case of COVID-19 in our facility these visits will be suspended pending facility wide testing and the results of those tests. Visitors will be asked to call facilities to schedule an inside visit with the Activity Director at 9th and 11th Street and any staff member at Riverside. Please call the facilities Monday – Friday 9:00am -3:00pm to schedule indoor/outdoor visits. Residents may have up to 2 guests per visit when conducting indoor visits and up to 4 guests when conducting outdoor visits. To ensure fairness to all residents, visits will be limited to 30 minutes unless scheduling allows for additional time.
1) Visitation can be conducted through various means based on the residents’ needs and space available for the scheduled visit to ensure the Core Principles of COVID-19 Infection Prevention are adhered to throughout the entire visit.
2) Each visitor will receive an educational handout explaining Nursing Facility Inside Visitation Guidelines for the visits and must comply with these. Visitors will provide their personal contact information for potential contact tracing if needed.
3) Visits may occur at 6-foot distance from residents with use of mask by both the visitors and the resident or without 6-foot distance if a plexiglass divider is available for use. This continues to be the safest way to prevent the spread of COVID-19 particularly if either party has not been fully vaccinated. However, we acknowledge that there is no substitute for physical contact such as the warm embrace between a resident and their loved one. Therefore, if the resident is fully vaccinated, they can choose to have close contact, including touch, with their visitor while wearing a well-fitting facemask covering the mouth and nose. Hand hygiene must be completed by both the resident and visitors prior to and after the visit.
4) Visitors will be monitored for compliance with guidelines and visits to include screening prior to and at the end of each visit and compliance with the Core Principles of COVID-19 Infection Prevention. If guidelines are violated, the visitor will be asked to leave the facility and visitation for that individual may be suspended.
5) Visitors may wear a cloth or disposable procedure mask; neck gaiters will not be allowed. Mask shall be properly worn by covering mouth and nose. If visitors do not have their own mask the facility will provide one.
6) Pets of residents/ visitors may accompany the visitor for visit. Pets will count as a visitor. Pets must be on a leash or in a pet carrier while in the facility and visitor must prevent access of the pet to other residents.
7) No eating, drinking, or smoking will be allowed by visitors during the visits due to the inability to do so while wearing a mask.
We hope these guidelines will allow everyone to balance the psychosocial needs of our residents with the safety precautions still required. If you have questions, please contact the facility Administrator or Activity Director.
Thank you!
Chautauqua Guest Homes Management Team
9/22/2020
Dear Residents and family members:
9th and 11th Street Chautauqua Guest Homes are pleased to announce that we will begin scheduling supervised outdoor visits effective immediately. To ensure fairness to all residents, we will offer each resident the opportunity to have two visitors for an outdoor visit for up to 30 minutes once per week. If you would like to have an additional visit, please inform the facility and we will compile a waiting list for an additional visit only after each resident has had the opportunity for a visit and if the schedule permits.
How do I schedule an outdoor visit?
All visits must be scheduled with the activity coordinator at each facility.
What are the visitor criteria?
- Visitors must wear a face mask during the entire visit
- Visitors must use hand sanitizer prior to and at the completion of the visit
- Any visitor who is experiencing any symptom of COVID-19 will refrain from visiting
- Any visitor who has a pending test for COVID-19 will not visit the facility until a negative result has been obtained
- All visitors must answer health screening questions and have temperature taken at the facility prior to the visit and at the completion of the visit
- Any visitor who has visited the facility who tests positive within 14 days of their visit will immediately notify the Administrator or the Director of Nursing at the facility
- Due to the risk of exposure, physical contact (holding hands, hugging, kissing, etc.) is not permitted during the visit.
- Due to the unpredictability of children, we ask that only adult visitors visit at this time. The minimum visiting age will be 16 years old.
Where will my visit take place?
Supervised visits will occur in the front of each building.
What happens in the event of inclement weather?
Resident safety will always be our first concern. In the event that weather conditions pose a potential threat to safety, the visit will be canceled and rescheduled.
How will social distancing be maintained?
The facilities will offer two styles of visiting. One style will be that the resident is placed behind a protective plexiglass on the top of the table and a protective barrier on the bottom of the table. The other style will not have protective plexiglass, the resident will be at one end of the table and the visitor at the other end. Please indicate your preference when scheduling a visit.
How do I ensure that the visiting station has been disinfected before my visit?
We ask that visits are completed on time so that we may have the necessary time to disinfect all surfaces of the outdoor visiting stations prior to the next scheduled visit.
If you have any additional questions regarding outdoor visits, please feel free to contact the Activity Coordinator or Administrator at each facility. Our regulations continue to evolve, we will notify you of any changes result in changes to our outdoor visiting status.
8/6/2020
To all Chautauqua Residents and Families;
I asked to write this update this week from my perspective as one of the corporation’s Infection Preventionists. I just want everyone to know how serious this virus continues to be and how difficult it is to control.
Part of my job is to monitor local, regional, and state-wide trends regarding virus activity. Below is some info from the Iowa Department of Public Health on two neighboring counties with outbreaks in their nursing facilities. In Cerro Gordo County, Good Shepard, a 210 bed nursing facility, has experienced 118 residents and staff with COVID-19. In Franklin County, 2 nursing facilities have outbreaks. Sheffield Care Center, a 45 bed nursing facility has experienced 41 residents and staff with COVID and a 105 bed home in Hampton has 38 residents and staff with the virus and numbers increasing daily. These statistics should prove how important it is to do our best to keep the virus out of our buildings and how quickly it affects the majority of residents if it does appear in nursing homes.
In Floyd County towards the end of last week, we had a COVID 19 case count of 101. At 10 AM today, this number had risen to 133. When the virus is present within the community and spreading so rapidly, my concern is that the chances of us keeping it out of the facilities continue to decrease. I also know that our management team is getting lots of questions regarding visiting residents or residents going out of the facility. In my opinion, lessening restrictions at this time would increase the likelihood of an outbreak. I am fearful of the consequences of this.
Last week you read about our testing plan. This has been initiated and at this point we have not had any positive resident or staff tests.
I know that since March there has been lots of conflicting information regarding best practices. I can assure you that at Chautauqua we are doing our best to sort out and act on all scientifically based recommendations to provide as many safeguards as possible.
With widespread community outbreaks, we only have two defensive moves-limiting contact opportunities and PPE. Simply stated, to limit contact, screening of residents occurs 2-3 times each and every day. Staff are screened at the beginning and the end of their shifts. And visitation is still restricted to essential personnel. Group activities and communal dining are NOT occurring.
Regarding PPE, residents have cloth masks that are to be worn whenever interacting with anyone else (even during window visits). Staff wear procedure masks and eye protection when they enter the building and only remove the same when they check out except during their meals and breaks. When residents are in isolation or quarantine, more PPE is used.
I hope that everyone who reads this can appreciate the effect this has had on our employees. I cannot thank them enough for caring enough to follow all our directives and procedures. I encourage you to take the time to thank any of them-they all deserve it very frequently (like daily). Without their efforts, I am convinced we already would have had an outbreak. Our staff have once again proven how they put the residents first. Please appreciate this!
I also want you to know that if the worst happens and we do have an outbreak, it doesn’t mean we have failed. If this occurs, we need to support each other even more. If an outbreak occurs it will be despite all of our extensive efforts, not because we didn’t try. Again, with our community data, this becomes more and more likely.
Our other Infection Preventionist, Sandy Staudt and I have been in contact with county, regional, and state contacts as we update our efforts to fight COVID-19. Sandy recently talked to an administrator currently experiencing an outbreak. Her comment was “It’s like nothing you can imagine.” And a recent article in a long-term magazine stated it best when writing “we can’t worry about keeping the virus out, we have to figure out how to live with it” — a sobering comment that rings true to me.
Thanks for reading this long letter. Please realize that Chautauqua is doing its best and that we need all of you to continue to be involved in the lives of all the residents in any of the approved methods. We continue to be concerned about the psycho/social effects of this prolonged isolation for our residents and will help you stay connected in any manner. We are all committed to doing what’s right and keeping ALL of our residents safe.
Sincerely;
Susan Ayers, RN, BSN, Infection Preventionist
July 30, 2020
To Our Residents and Family Members:
As of Thursday, July 30, 2020, 9th Street and 11th Street Chautauqua Guest Homes and Riverside Senior Living continue to have no new cases of COVID-19. The facilities continue with increased monitoring of all residents/tenants and screening of all individuals entering and exiting the facilities.
We are preparing to begin conducting monthly testing of all residents/tenants and staff members starting next week. We continue to closely monitor the COVID case counts for Floyd County and we are in the process of finalizing our policy and procedures regarding limited outdoor visitation. Limited outdoor visitation will be contingent on case count trends and any confirmed cases in any of our facilities.
We are pleased to announce that this week, both 9th Street and 11th Street Chautauqua Guest Homes began to offer haircuts to our residents. We are fortunate to have a staff member who is also a Licensed Cosmetologist and she will be offering haircuts only to our residents one day a week at each facility until our routine Licensed Cosmetologist is able to enter the facility. The cost for a men’s haircut is $16.00 and $20.00 for a women’s haircut. Please contact the facility if the price is not acceptable to you and you choose to wait. No set & shampoos or perms will be offered until the return of our routine Cosmetologist.
We would like to thank you for all of your continued support and understanding during this unprecedented time. If you have any questions or concerns, you are encouraged to contact the facilities. Please continue to check the facility website at chautauquaguesthomes.com and Facebook for updates as well.
Sincerely,
Mary Shupe, Misty Hobert,
Administrator Administrator