Update from Administrator – May 14, 2020
As always, our team and I hope this finds you safe and healthy. As some states begin to ease restrictions on businesses and the general public, please note that our center will NOT be included in any category. The visitor restriction placed on us by the state in early March is still in effect for the foreseeable future; we will advise you when this changes. We continue to offer our weekly conference call for families and FaceTime calls, Zoom meetings, and window visits for you and your loved ones.
From the beginning of this crisis, we have implemented extensive infection control measures to protect residents. I have listed those in many past emails, our weekly “Town Hall” conference calls, and this information remains on our website. As always, if you would like any details on them, please let me know via Info@marlboroughhillsrhcc.com
As you know, this virus has impacted nursing homes at a disproportionately high rate. In Massachusetts, patients and staff have tested positive in more than 300 centers. That is more than 80% of all nursing homes.
These details are now available on a new State website.
https://www.mass.gov/…/covid-19-dashboard-april-20…/download
We may be turning the corner on our center’s battle with COVID-19. As of today, we have seen 18 of our residents convert to negative and are now symptom-free of COVID-19. We are very excited for these residents, their families, and our staff. We anticipate this number to continue to rise and we will begin holding “graduation” or recovery ceremonies, to celebrate their success. We feel this would be helpful to everyone! We are expecting more residents to clinically clear in the upcoming days.
We completed our first DPH COVID Phase 2 audit this week and met 26 of the 28 metrics.
We further improved our COVID special care unit as a result of the inspection, to now include 2 distinct levels of care within our COVID unit for “known positive” and “pending”.
The other metric is still under review for clarification by the State Epidemiologist for further guidance involving a requirement for all direct patient care staff to wear full PPE.
I will update you as those details are known.
We completed a wire transfer and just today obtained 250 test kits to be used to test our staff. We continue to schedule consistent staffing on all our units and have successfully recruited and hired 8 COVID unit nurses who work exclusively on our special care unit. We continue to follow all CDC and state guidelines and receive regular updates on new guidelines as they are developed. This information is shared with our staff and additional training is continually taking place.
Our next “Town Hall” meeting is scheduled for this evening, Thursday, 5/14 at 5:00pm and we will discuss more detailed information on center updates. We encourage any residents and family members to contact us with any questions you have about the care we are offering.
Please continue to use our special email address Info@marlboroughhillsrhcc.com to request virtual visits, or ask questions.
Our commitment is to be as transparent as possible and work to address any issues that arise. This is an incredibly challenging time and we will continue to do all we can to get through this, together.
Attached is “Massachusetts Ballot Initiative to Support Nursing Homes” with an embedded link. I am asking for your signature to bring this to a vote. Please help us by clicking the link and support this initiative. This will also be posted on our Facebook page if you would like to further distribute.
Thank you,
Ronald Doty
Administrator