Critical Step 1

Keep COVID-19 from entering your facility

• Follow visitation guidance from CDPH, IDPH, and CMS 
• Ensure that visitors who have COVID-like symptoms or active infections are excluded from the building
• Actively screen visitors, residents, and staff for symptoms of COVID-19
• Follow staff testing and exclusion guidance from CDPH, IDPH, and CMS
• Ensure that staff sick leave policies are flexible and non-punitive
• Request that contractors, students, and volunteers provide documentation of a negative COVID-19 PCR test according to the required frequency outlined by CDPH, IDPH, and CMS
• Implement universal masking for everyone in the facility
• Encourage vaccination for all staff, visitors, and residents

Tools and Resources:

• Visitation & Offsite Outings
  • Nursing Home Visitation - COVID-19 (revised version released November 12, 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
  • 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
• ​​​​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
• 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