As we prepare for the pending colder weather, we have formulated our plan for indoor visits for the Meadows residents and their families.  This is something we believe is very important to the wellbeing of our residents and we are working as hard as possible to continue affording opportunities for in person visits while maintaining the safety of the residents.  We will begin inside visits on November 9th, so please ask any questions during the next week.

We have identified a space off the unit, but close to the entrance for visits to occur.  For clarity, the indoor visits will NOT take place on the units itself or in the resident rooms. As with the outside visits, the requirement to check in at front desk for screening, wear masks at all times during visit, and maintaining at least 6 feet distance from you and the resident continue.  With the change to indoor, we need to add some parameters as well.

  • Since we have limited space indoors that allows for open ventilation and space for distancing, we will be going back to 2 visits per week to allow for more families to get a visit scheduled during the week. 
  • We will be decreasing the time of the visit to 20 minutes and will go back to a limit of 2 visitors during the visits. 
  • We are asking that no food or drink be brought during the visit for your use or for sharing so the masks will stay on during the entire visit.
  • Since the visit time is going to be a bit shorter, we would ask that you make sure to arrive in plenty of time for your visit, at least 15 minutes before your scheduled time.
  • If you are late for your appointed visitation time, you may have your time forfeited since we will have much tighter time lines between visits.  Contact us if you are going to be late and we can try to reschedule.
  • Please refrain from using the visit time to ask supervising staff to complete requests such as getting resident laundry or personal item delivery.  Please manage these requests outside of the visiting time. 
  • We are asking for at least 24 hours notice on evening and weekend visits so we can be sure and manage the logistics.

The decreased visit time we are implementing is based on the concern that more time in an indoor space increases the risk to transmission, even with mask use and distancing. We may add more safety items, such as plexiglass panels, face shields or distances greater than 6 feet.  These visitation changes, as with our current visitation plan, is contingent on a few things, the most direct would be a positive case on our unit. As with all of our initiatives, we are also beholden to the community positivity rate.  At this point it continues to stay below 5% in Delaware County, but it is just under 5%.  If the rate increases, we may need to pull back on the visitation.  There will always be the availability to visit at the resident’s room window, if all else fails.  Our building geography has allowed us to have window visits from the beginning of this pandemic and we have room number posted on windows and some chairs outside of the room windows for family use.

At this point we are not offering in room visitation unless for compassionate reasons which will be handled on a case by case basis.  These guidelines are in place to protect both the residents in our care and the staff who provides to care to our residents.  The addition of this to our regular daily staff tasks is something we recognize as very important to our resident’s wellbeing, which is our main objective.  Thank you for your understanding.