Update from Administrator – May 29, 2020
As always, our team and I hope this finds you safe and healthy. Another “thank you” for all the staff’s hard work, dedication, and compassion for all of our residents here. We remain incredibly grateful for our entire dedicated team and ask you to join me in ensuring that they are included as “Health Care Heroes” battling COVID-19. They are doing everything they possibly can to care for those suffering while also implementing preventive measures to minimize the spread of the disease. Everyone is working hard, and their efforts do not go unnoticed.
I would like to begin with an update to you on the facility wide testing that was conducted through last weekend. We were able to test 96% resident and 93% staff members. This was mandated by Governor Baker and Mass DPH with a minimum testing result of 90%.
We had our infection control survey with Mass DPH this past Tuesday and were told by the surveyor that she had no concerns, our PPE inventory was substantial, and our staff was well versed in infection control policy and procedures. Over the last week we have continued to appropriately cohort our residents according to the CDC guidance.
We continue to schedule consistent staffing on all our units. We continue to follow all CDC and state guidelines and receive regular updates on new guidelines that are offered. This information is shared with our staff and additional training is continually taking place.
Good news… As of today, we have seen 53 of our residents convert to negative and are now symptom-free of COVID-19. We are very excited for these residents, their families, and our staff. We anticipate this number to continue to rise and we will begin holding recognition ceremonies to celebrate their success.
Now that the weather is looking good – you will receive another email soon with information about scheduling perimeter visits with your loved ones. Perimeter visits include window visits. Please remember that the perimeter visits must be pre-scheduled to ensure safe and healthy visits for you, the residents, and our staff. Please contact Christine O’Rourke at (508) 860-5000 extension 5012 to schedule Window visits and FaceTime / Zoom access.
Please use our special email address Info@WorcesterRHCC.com to ask questions. In addition, we encourage any family member to contact Miriam Lena, nursing supervisor, for questions about a family member on the 2nd or 3rd floors or ask for Caroline Tuttle, ADON for questions about residents on 4th and 5th floors.
As a reminder. our next “Town Hall” meeting is scheduled for Thursday Jun 4th at 3:30 PM. Our commitment is to be as transparent as possible and work to address any issues that arise. This is an incredibly challenging time and we will continue to do all we can to get through this, together.
Thank you and please stay safe and healthy!
Sincerely,
Rob Taber, Administrator