Residents and Families,
CMS (Medicare), which is the governing body that oversees the regulations in our Health Care Center (HCC), has issued additional guidelines for testing. The frequency of testing is based upon the rate of infection in the surrounding community. Since Philadelphia is currently at a less than five percent rate, we will be testing all Employees monthly beginning next week.
When this guidance was issued, it was to include the delivery of testing machines and equipment to each HCC. To date, we have not received ours and it will be necessary to go through the labor-intensive and costly process of swabbing the nares of our Employees and sending the samples to an outside lab. I will keep you informed if there are any results requiring action and additional restrictions or precautions. I will share that I have concerns about possible false positives; one new case would require the testing of all Residents and Employees every 3-7 days until no new cases are identified.
On a very positive note, we have been successful in keeping the virus out of our community for the last 12 weeks!
I can be reached at kbeiler@wel.org or at extension 802. Please take care of yourselves, and I will be in touch again soon.