How Chicago nursing homes and assisted living facilities can reduce COVID 19 risks

As COVID-19 continues its spread, everyone is looking for ways to stay safe and healthy. This is especially true for people who work with at-risk populations, like seniors or those with pre-existing conditions.

In no place do those two risk factors merge more than assisted living facilities. While assisted living facilities are at increased risk for rapid spread of COVID, there are things you can do to decrease the risk and help keep your residents safe.

At ServiceMaster Restoration by Zaba, our team of restoration experts works with many facilities in and around the Chicago area to provide comprehensive COVID-19 cleaning services to help reduce the spread of disease.

In this post, we'll share a few of our top tips for helping your facility stay safe and clean.

Let's dive in.

COVID-19 and Nursing Homes

When you look at the COVID numbers throughout the country, it's clear that nursing homes have been ground zero for the virus. In fact, nursing home residents and workers account for about one-third of all COVID-19 deaths in the United States. But why? What makes nursing homes particularly at-risk? Here are a few key factors:

• The vulnerability of residents. Some of the nation's most vulnerable populations live in nursing homes. In fact, some assisted living facilities only allow admittance to people who require 24-hour nursing care. In most cases, the residents' care requirements are the result of an injury or chronic disease. Today, more than 90% of older adults have at least one existing chronic disease, while 70% have at least two. These chronic diseases and pre-existing conditions impact immune function and make it harder for residents to fight off illnesses like COVID-19.

• Close quarters. Nursing home residents live in close quarters with others. This means that both the residents and the staff are at increased risk for infectious diseases. Managing transmission is challenging, and illnesses that do infiltrate the environment tend to spread rapidly.

• Outside visitors. While most nursing homes throughout the country are currently restricting visitors, external traffic can introduce diseases that impact residents.

When you combine these factors, it's easy to see how COVID-19 has become such a deadly reality for the residents of long-term care facilities.

What you can do to Limit COVID-19 Risk

While the threat of COVID-19 is frightening for nursing home workers and residents, you can take preventive measures to limit risk and keep everyone safe. Here's some recent guidance from OSHA.

1.) Ask workers to stay home if they are sick: Workers should monitor their temperatures and stay home if they have any of the symptoms of COVID-19, including fever, sore throat, cough or shortness of breath or difficulty breathing.

Additionally, nursing homes and assisted care facilities should monitor residents and workers for symptoms of COVID-19. Sick workers should seek immediate medical care.

2.) Take precautions around exposure: If you believe there has been a COVID-19 exposure at your facility, monitor the situation closely. If you think there are residents or employees who have been exposed, take additional precautions.

This includes updating or altering resident visitation policies. To keep residents safe, ask all visitors to self-report about their health. They should notify your facility if they develop a fever or experience symptoms of COVID-19 within two weeks (14 days) of their visit.

3.) Maintain social distancing: During daily operations, maintain a minimum of six feet between workers, residents, and visitors. Social distancing should persist, to the extent possible, while employees perform their duties and during breaks.

If you can, stagger break periods to avoid close contact between employees in break rooms. Additionally, consider hosting virtual staff meetings and resident activities instead of holding large gatherings in person. Keep in mind that the COVID-19 situation is developing rapidly, so consult state regulations regarding the size of gatherings.

4.) Maintain cleanliness: Always follow good cleaning practices for maximum infection prevention and control. Have facilities cleaned and disinfected routinely by a professional team. Create hand-washing facilities and provide alcohol-based hand sanitizer with at least 60 percent alcohol throughout facilities.

Clean and disinfect high-touch or shared surfaces throughout the facility. To ensure maximum sanitation, hire a professional cleaning company that uses hospital-grade disinfectants. The ideal cleaning chemicals are EPA-approved, hospital-grade that have label claims against the coronavirus.

5.) Provide PPE: Keep workers safe by ensuring they have access to any personal protective equipment (PPE) they need to perform their jobs safely. Make sure all employees understand how to use and wear this PPE.

To ensure ample stores of PPE, monitor PPE stock, usage, and burn rate. Per OSHA guidelines, "develop a process for decontamination and reuse of PPE, such as face shields and goggles, as appropriate."

Finally, follow CDC recommendations for the optimization of PPE supplies.

6.) Offer training: Educate all workers about how to stay safe during COVID-19. Encourage workers to report any safety and health concerns.

Additionally, the CDC recommends that nursing homes and assisted living facilities assign a designated COVID response person: "Facilities should assign at least one individual with training in IPC to provide on-site management of their COVID-19 prevention and response activities because of the breadth of activities for which an IPC program is responsible, including developing IPC policies and procedures, performing infection surveillance, providing competency-based training of health care personnel, and auditing adherence to recommended infection prevention and control practices."

When practiced carefully, these tips can help reduce the spread of COVID-19 and keep residents and staff safe.

Protecting Your Residents and Staff

When it comes to COVID-19, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. By following OSHA and CDC guidelines, you can help reduce the risk of experiencing COVID-19 cases in your nursing facility and keep your staff and residents safe.

At ServiceMaster of Zaba, our team works with facilities like yours to provide comprehensive cleaning services to help destroy bacteria and disease and keep your facility safe. Contact us at www.servicemasterbyzaba.com/contact-us/today to learn more.