COVID-19 Update From Administrator – March 25, 2020
Dear Families,
We’re going to jump into a few areas to bring you up to date and hopefully answer some questions you may have about our center and more importantly, about your loved ones. We hope this format works well moving forward.
Activities Recreation – How your loved one is spending their day
- This is a tough one, but overall, we are adjusting. The visitor restriction placed on our center stipulated that no outside volunteers or entertainers can enter the building. Like you, we are practicing social distancing as best as we can. Therefore, activities are taking place such as 1:1 visits with recreation staff, refreshment cart rounds, activity cart visits, painting, coloring, word searches and puzzles. Recreation is also providing video chat sessions to connect families with their loved ones.
- Our alternative visits are up and running. We appreciate your patience as we developed this and to work on making it the best possible experience.
- With your written permission, we will post more pictures of your loved one our Facebook page for you to see them engaged in activities and sharing moments with our staff. If you do not consent to this, we can text or email you photos.
For your loved ones
- We are taking a full set of resident Vitals each shift, along with their O2 saturation level (this is a new CDC recommendation that we have implemented). We are also observing for subtle changes (increased weakness, confusion, agitation).
- Residents with sudden onset of symptoms will be placed on “droplet precautions” until their case can be reviewed.
- We are pulling the privacy curtains that go between the 2 beds in our semi-private rooms.
- Any visiting healthcare provider, such as hospice nurses, will be required to wear a face mask.
Our Employees
Before any staff member can begin a shift at our center, we take their temperature, measure their oxygen saturation rate, and require them to complete a health questionnaire. Our employees are our best asset, and they have been great. We hope you agree with us. They are resilient and compassionate individuals who come in everyday ready to be there for your loved one!
Regrettably, our neighbor, The Crossings Assisted Living Community has had several residents and staff members who have tested positive for Covid-19. From time to time, as many as four of our current employees have worked at that center on a part-time basis. Once we learned of the significance of the issue at The Crossings, our employees were instructed to stop working there. Any of these employees who had spent time at The Crossings, has had regular temperature checks, health screens, and has displayed no signs and symptoms that would warrant a Covid-19 test, per Connecticut DPH guidelines. We are monitoring them and have asked them to self-monitor as well.
Our hearts go out to our neighbors at The Crossings.
Info@ email
- An added communication tool we are announcing is our “Info@LaurelRidgeHCC.com” email address, which is distributed to several department heads, in case you have general questions for us.
- Beginning this week, we are assigning each of our departments several residents and families to be their lead contact for general questions. This contact will work with you to share updates on your loved one. They will check-in with your loved one each day and can provide a brief update to you, on request. Once your assigned department head gets in-touch with you, you will have their email address as a future contact. Please be mindful that they are still doing their daily job, so they may be limited or delayed in their response – and that they may not be a “clinical” staff member who can answer specific clinical questions. Those questions will be routed to our clinicians. We are hoping that this will increase communication from our center to you.
As I have said before, I would like to personally thank you for your patience during this very unusual time for all of us. This is an unprecedented time and we appreciate the support and kind words of encouragement we have received. We continue to monitor and look to our state and federal governing bodies on updates for Covid-19. We appreciate the support we have received from families and the general public. We also appreciate the dedication of our employees under these stressful and uncertain times.
Sobha Lamontagne
Administrator