DOH/IPRO Hold Webinar on Booster Vaccine in Nursing Homes and ACFs
On Feb. 9th, the Department of Health (DOH) and IPRO held a free webinar on the COVID-19 booster and how it is affecting case numbers in the nursing home and adult care facility (ACF) settings. Key points are provided below; the webinar slides will be posted once available.
- Antigen tests were sent out last week. If your facility has a Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendment (CLIA) waiver, you will receive both BinaxNOW and PCR tests. If you do not want PCR tests, please email your respective service line's COVID BML (covidnursinghomeinfo@health.ny.gov or covidadultcareinfo@health.ny.gov).
- Visits are expected to continue and are only to be paused by DOH or your local health department if continued spread is occurring despite infection control practices. If you have questions, you should reach out to your DOH Regional Office or the DOH Central Office.
- IPRO shared the following Tracking Logs for Vaccination Status of both residents and staff from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) website:
- IPRO discussed going back to basics before your next survey:
- Have your policies and procedures been updated during the pandemic? If so, are they updated EVERYWHERE?
- Do you have Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDSs) for any new products you use to clean with?
- Have you added COVID-19-specific policies, and if so, have you been educating staff on them and including them in your new hire/annual orientation?
- Do not lose sight of the "basics" – hand hygiene, personal protective equipment (PPE), masking for source control, resident monitoring (ACFs), who maintains your line list (ACFs).
- Change your signage routinely! If you do not, staff/residents/visitors become used to them and do not pay attention to them. Also, can everyone read and understand it? Make sure that all signs on the same topic MATCH throughout the facility (that you do not have old and new signs posted in different places).
- Auditing – Do the results of any audits you are doing (hand hygiene, PPE donning and doffing) go to Quality Assurance and Performance Improvement (QAPI)?
- IPRO also discussed other isolation precautions:
- Is the correct PPE in the room(s) for the type of isolation needed, or is it all COVID-19 PPE?
- Is staff changing their mask when coming out of an isolation room?
- Is this an opportunity for re-education?
- Are your isolation signs different from your COVID-19 signs so that staff can EASILY recognize it is a different type of isolation precaution?
- IPRO discussed Multidrug Resistant Organisms (MDROs) and will be offering another webinar on this topic in March. Be sure to watch for that announcement from DOH.
Contact: Mark Kepner-Clough, mkepner-clough@leadingageny.org, 518-728-2365