Dear Patients, Families and Community:

We hope you are doing well and staying safe during these ever-changing times. I wanted to provide you with an update on several items of interest.

COVID-19
As of the date of this letter, Radford Health & Rehab has no patients or employees that have tested positive for COVID-19. We are very pleased to be able to share this reassuring news with you.

Mitigation
We continue to screen and monitor all patients in the Center very closely. The staff are screened both before and after their shifts for temperature and respiratory symptoms. We send staff home if they do not pass the screen criteria. Staff are not permitted to return to work until they have satisfied CDC criteria for return to work. We are diligent in practicing social distancing within the Center and in encouraging staff to do the same in their personal lives. In fact, a part of our daily screening questions is confirmation that social distancing is being practiced by the individual.

We are also very careful about new patient admissions, requesting a negative COVID-19 test prior to admission and placing all new admissions on isolation precautions for 14 days for monitoring purposes.

Testing
The Governor recently announced that in the Commonwealth of Virginia, testing of all new nursing home residents will be required. We are still waiting on those details, but in the meantime, we are obtaining orders to test any patient who meets the Virginia Department of Health criteria or who has a physician order for testing. We cannot independently have a patient tested for COVID-19 without approval.

PPE
You may have heard news reports about the challenges of obtaining sufficient “personal protective equipment” or PPE. Our staff has been using “universal” face masks for several weeks now and are confident that our supply of surgical face masks is sufficient. Some administrative staff may choose not to wear face masks while in their office alone, but if out in any public Center area or a patient room, they are required to wear a face mask. We have full PPE available should we need it for patients requiring isolation. While N-95 masks are not as readily available as we would like, we are daily monitoring supplies and at this time we have a sufficient supply and are maximizing the use of our current supply in accordance with CDC guidelines.

Staff Training
We are continually working to educate and re-educate staff on proper PPE usage, social distancing and infection control procedures, information regarding COVID-19 and to cross train staff to create the most efficient staffing model should we experience more COVID-19 activity.

Physicians
We are still encouraging physicians and nurse practitioners to complete patient visits in person while making telemedicine visits possible should the need arise. For specialty visits that your loved one might ordinarily have had to travel outside the center to complete, we have the technology and ability to conduct that visit by telemedicine. This is working very well in the Center. Our medical director Dr. Brochero is also very engaged with us as we continue preparing for COVID-19.

Visitation
We know that the continued restriction on in-person visitation is frustrating. As the weeks pass by we understand the disappointment in not being able to get back to normal routines. But we are seeing the positive benefit of restricting visitation, and we are also seeing many effective and heart-touching video-visits occur every day! If you have not tried this type of visit, please reach out to our Activities Department, Social Services Department or to me and we will provide assistance. Our practice in the Center has been to discourage “window visits” due to privacy and safety concerns; but we will consider allowing a window visit with advance notice and scheduling to help you celebrate special occasions, milestones or holidays. We will also continue to facilitate phone calls and other means of remote visitation. We also encourage you to write a letter or send a card; we have seen the delivery of mail is a true bright spot in a patient’s day. As Mother’s Day approaches, we are also brainstorming as to special ways we can help make that day special.

Communication
We know that communication is key to your peace of mind. We encourage you to check our website frequently at www.radford-rehab.com. We also encourage you to make sure the Center has a current email address for you. We will communicate more frequently by email if the Center has confirmed positive COVID-19 patients or staff and will strive keep you informed with relevant details should an
“outbreak” occur. Under new Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) guidelines, we will be providing notification to you if more than three patients or staff experience new respiratory symptoms and require testing. An accurate email address will ensure that you receive communications as quickly as possible.

Thank You
We want to thank the local community for their overwhelming support during the past few weeks and even in response to recent publicity. We have received many phone calls, cards, emails and letters of support. We also want to thank local businesses for donations of supplies and food. These positive expressions of support keep us motivated and remind us that we are making a positive impact on lives. We continue to encourage you to stay safe, practice social distancing and good hand hygiene as you are out in the community obtaining essential supplies.
As always please feel free to reach out to me directly with concerns or questions.

Sincerely, 

Kemet Scott, LNHA Administrator

To see the official letter, please click here.