Lancashire Hall COVID Communications

 As reported on Wednesday, the CDC and CMS issued updated guidance for visitation, testing, and activities.  The revised guidance is located here  QSO-20-39-NH REVISED (cms.gov)  for your review.   In light of these changes, we have updated our facility policies to include changes that are addressed in the revised guidance.   NEW for visitation: When both residents and their visitors are fully vaccinated, they can choose to have close contact (including touch) and not wear source control masks.  To clarify, if both are fully vaccinated, there is no need to wear a mask or physically distance during the visit.  However, when around employees, other residents or visitors not in your group, you must continue to wear masks and physically distance. The facility is not permitted to ask or require visitors to notify us of your vaccination status.  However, if vaccination status is unknown, we will continue to require masking. There is...

The CDC and CMS updated guidance yesterday, 4/27/2021, regarding testing, visitation and activities in response to COVID-19 vaccination.  We are currently in the process of reviewing the guidance and updating our policies to comply with the new guidance.  The facility is taking the necessary steps to review, update and adjust our processes.  Once we have updated the policies/procedures and educated staff, we will make adjustments to the visitation schedule.  We will provide you with updates as soon as we have additional information. Thank you for your patience. Sharon Eyster, MA, ACBSW, CNHA, FACHCA Director of Operations

 The county positivity rate for Lancaster County as of 4/16/21 is 9.0%  We continue to test employees weekly based on the county positivity rate.  There have been no new positive test results.  Our team has met to review current visitation schedules and will be revising to increase the number of visits at each scheduled time.  This should help with getting as many of you in for visitation as possible.  We also continue to encourage outdoor visits as weather permits.  The Therapeutic Recreation staff will be contacting you next week to schedule a visit or to update you on the visitation schedule. Sharon Eyster, MA, ACBSW, CNHA, FACHCA Director of Operations

 We have completed the first round of outbreak testing and have not had any  new positive test results for employees or residents.  Residents who were exposed to the employee that tested positive are in  Yellow Zones and still on transmission based precautions until next Tuesday.  Indoor visits for residents not on "isolation" (in a Yellow Zone) are permitted to have indoor visits.  Those who are in Yellow Zones may have window visits. Our staff are working on updating visitation schedules.   The county positivity rates will be updated tomorrow and I will post them along with any new information tomorrow. Sharon Eyster, MA, ACBSW, CNHA, FACHCA Director of Operations

 We have been informed that an employee has tested positive for COVID-19.  The employee last worked in the facility on 4/3.  As a result, we are conducting outbreak testing of all residents and staff in accordance with CMS and PA DOH guidance.  The new guidance requires that we suspend indoor visits (with the exception of compassionate visits and those for disability law rights) until we complete the first round of testing.  The guidance is posted here for your reference  QSO-20-39-NH Revised (cms.gov) .  The staff are in the process of calling families and notifying residents.  The COVID hotline message has been updated today with this new information. Additionally, residents who were exposed to this employee are now on transmission based precautions in a "Yellow Zone".  As you will recall, the Yellow Zone is the area where residents are isolated during the 14 day quarantine period.  The employee worked on Appel wing, therefore, Appel i...