Long-term care facilities (LTCFs), including nursing homes, skilled nursing facilities, and assisted living facilities, provide care to some of the most vulnerable populations, including elderly people and those with chronic medical conditions. Resources below aim to provide interim guidance for the prevention and control of COVID-19 in LTCFs. Given the high risk of spread once COVID-19 enters a LTCF, facilities must act immediately to protect residents, families, and staff from serious illness, complications, and death.

1. Keep COVID-19 from entering your facility
   • Visitor restrictions
   • Emergency travel order
   • Universal masking 
   • Staff work restrictions
   • Reopening guidelines
2. Identify infections early
   • Resident monitoring
   • Testing and specimen collection
   • Reporting requirements
   • Notification and communication
3. Prevent spread of COVID-19
   • Transmission Based Precautions
   • Personal protective equipment (PPE) use
   • Cleaning and disinfection
   • Hand hygiene 
4. Assess supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) and initiate measures to optimize current supply
   • PPE supply optimization strategies
   • Burn rate calculator
   • Respiratory protection
5. Identify and manage severe illness
   • Cohorting guidance
   • Resident monitoring 
   • Clinical management 
   • Influenza guidance
6. Vaccinate residents and staff
   • COVID-19 vaccine information
   • LTCF Pharmacy Partnership Program

COVID-19 Data:

• City of Chicago COVID Dashboard
  • Interactive dashboard showing current and historical case counts, deaths, testing volume, and positivity rates. Data can also be stratified by age, gender, race/ethnicity, and zip code.
• Illinois Regional COVID-19 Resurgence Criteria - Region 11 
  • ​​Website showing test positivity, hospital admissions, and hospital utilization data for Region 11 (Chicago). These metrics are used to determine if/when to implement, advance, or remove tiered mitigation measures. 
• IDPH Long-Term Care Facility COVID-19 Outbreaks
  • ​​​​​Database of Illinois LTCFs with COVID-19 cases, including outbreak reported cases, deaths, and outbreak status. 
• CMS COVID-19 Nursing Home Data - Test Positivity Rates
  • ​​​​​​Website with county-specific test positivity rates as calculated by CMS. These data are used to determine when to increase/decrease frequency of staff testing at LTCFs.  
• Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Dashboard
  • ​​​​Interactive website showing COVID-19 cases and deaths by county (US) and country (worldwide).

Guidance Documents for Long Term Care:

IDPH LTC Guidance:  

• Updated Interim Guidance for Nursing Homes and Other Long-Term Care Facilities Incorporating COVID-19 Vaccination

  • IDPH guidance on infection prevention and control, visitation, communal dining, group activities, beauty/barber services, offsite outings, testing, screening, PPE, etc. 

• COVID-19 Long Term Care Facilities Guidance webpage

  • ​​​​​Interim guidance for LTCFs on infection prevention and control measures that should be implemented in order to protect residents and staff from COVID-19

• COVID-19 Checklist for Facilities

  • Checklist of activities that LTCFs should complete to prevent the introduction and spread of COVID-19 within and between facilities

CDC LTC Guidance:

• Preparing for COVID-19: Long Term Care Facilities and Nursing Homes

  • Summary of the core practices that LTCFs should use to prepare for and manage COVID-19 cases and outbreaks. Recently updated to include strategies to consider as facilities progress through the reopening stages outlined by CMS 

• Responding to Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Nursing Homes

  • Guidance related to resident cohorting, response to newly identified staff and resident cases, and use of testing to inform the response

COVID-19 Infection Control Facility Assessment:

• Complete the following infection prevention and control tool to identify critical resource elements

Resource Requests:

• To request swabs and packing supplies from the IDPH Laboratory, please complete the online IDPH Laboratory COVID-19 Supply Order Form

• Instructions on how to request staff through Illinois Helps

  • Facilities must register a system administrator with Illinois Helps

  • Complete the 213 Resource Request form and Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) Request Form indicating:

    • Number and skills of staff requested
    • Shift
    • Facility point of contact for coordination