Keep COVID-19 from Entering Your Facility - HAN
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Overview
Critical Step 1
Keep COVID-19 from entering your facility
- Follow visitation guidance from IDPH & CMS
- Actively screen every person (both staff and non-staff) that enters the building for fever and other symptoms of COVID-19. Send ill personnel home. Sick leave policies should be flexible and non-punitive.
- Request that essential HCP, students, and volunteers provide documentation of a negative COVID-19 PCR test from a specimen collected within the preceding week.
- Implement universal masking for everyone in the facility.
Tools and Resources:
- Emergency Travel Order (issued July 2, 2020)
- Effective July 6, 2020, Public Health Order 2020-10 requires a 14-day quarantine for travelers entering or returning to Chicago from certain states with high levels of COVID activity
- General FAQ (website updated regularly)
- Healthcare Personnel FAQ (HAN Alert issued July 7, 2020)
- Visitation & Offsite Outings
- Nursing Home Visitation - COVID-19 (revised version released March 10, 2021)
- CMS memo covering visitation requirements and parameters
- LTC Visitation Appointment Schedule & Visitor Register (released August 17, 2020)
- IDPH template for facilities to record visit information, including visitor contact information
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on Nursing Home Visitation (released June 23, 2020)
- CMS document answering frequently asked questions related to visitation, including compassionate care visits, outdoor visits, and visits from an ombudsman.
- Outdoor Visitation Guidance for Long-Term Care Facilities (released June 19, 2020)
- IDPH SIREN outlining the measures that must be put in place to allow for outdoor visitation with residents.
- LTCF Risk Assessment for Residents who go to Appointments or Outings (IDPH)
- Risk assessment to be used to determine whether transmission-based precautions should be implemented upon return after a resident leaves the facility
- Essential Caregiver Guidance for Long-Term Care Facilities
- IDPH SIREN outlining guidance for essential caregivers
- Nursing Home Visitation - COVID-19 (revised version released March 10, 2021)
- Healthcare Personnel (HCP) Symptom Screening & Return to Work Guidelines
- Criteria for Return to Work for Healthcare Personnel with SARS-CoV-2 Infection (Interim Guidance)
- CDC guidance outlining the symptom-based and test-based strategies for determining when HCPs can return to work
- Criteria for Return to Work for Healthcare Personnel with SARS-CoV-2 Infection (Interim Guidance)
- Reopening Guidance
- Updated Interim Guidance for Nursing Homes and Other Long-Term Care Facilities and Programs: Phased Reopening (re-issued May 6, 2021)
- IDPH document outlining phased reopening guidance for LTCFs, including what criteria need to be met prior to moving between phases
- Nursing Home Reopening Recommendations for State and Local Officials (released May 18, 2020)
- CMS memorandum outlining guidance for state and local officials on how to implement a phase-based nursing home reopening plan
- Updated Interim Guidance for Nursing Homes and Other Long-Term Care Facilities and Programs: Phased Reopening (re-issued May 6, 2021)
- Guidance for Infection Control and Prevention of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Nursing Homes (revised March 13, 2020)
- CMS memorandum with infection prevention and control guidance for nursing homes, including direction to restrict visitors and non-essential healthcare personnel, except when medically necessary).
- Template letter for family communication
- To help communicate with residents and families regarding visitor restrictions requirements
- Interim Recommendations, Universal Masking and Enhanced Environmental Disinfection
- IDPH SIREN with guidance regarding universal face masking in Illinois nursing homes
- CDC strategies for optimizing supply of facemasks
- Facilities should optimize their facemask supply by issuing healthcare professionals one facemask per shift
- Staff must immediately discard masks that are soiled, damp or damaged
- Keep COVID-19 Out! (06:04)
- CDC video with tips on what frontline LTCF staff can do to protect residents and coworkers from COVID-19
COVID-19 Reporting
For COVID-19 Long-Term Care Guidance And Support:
How To Report COVID-19 Cases To CDPH:
Both individual lab-confirmed cases and clusters are reportable conditions. Providers must report all positive cases into INEDSS or, if your facility does not have access to INEDSS, via the COVID-19 Online Case Report Form (a confidential online survey powered by IDPH REDCap).
All facilities must submit a weekly COVID-19 Facility Summary Report, capturing all known residents and staff with confirmed COVID-19 infections to date along with any currently symptomatic residents or staff. Additionally, facilities that are conducting in-house antigen testing and do not yet have the ability to report individual-level antigen results (positive, negative, and inconclusive) to IDPH or NHSN must submit a weekly COVID-19 Antigen Test Result Report to CDPH. Both reports are due on Thursdays by 12 p.m. and can be submitted using the CDPH Facility Summary Report Upload Site.
We also ask that any potential reinfections (e.g., new positive results >90 days after the original infection) be reported through the optional SARS-CoV-2 Reinfection Case Investigation Form.