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Hello! We are planning to have a covid update Facebook Live on Monday 9/27 at 8:30 PM.
You will be able to see it later if you can't make it at that time.
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A statement from Fairview Haven Administration regarding the following article:
Reports that the Biden administration plans to require that nursing homes mandate staff vaccinations or risk losing funding from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid. (article linked here: https://www.cnn.com/.../nursing-homes-federal.../index.html) While we typically refrain from mixing politics with healthcare, we feel a statement is necessary in this critical time. * * * * * Following are excerpts taken from a statement from Katie Smith Sloan, president and CEO of LeadingAge, the association of nonprofit providers of aging services, including nursing homes. “Access to the COVID-19 vaccine has been the most important development of the pandemic for older adults and the people who care for them”—and as such, we have strongly encouraged our team members and residents to consider vaccination. We believe it is the right thing to do, not only for nursing home staff, but also all healthcare workers who care for people with high risk of contracting severe COVID-19. The entire healthcare community has been risking their lives every day for over a year to protect older Americans from COVID. The vaccine is the best proven protection. “While often good intentions can be found in any government mandate, we believe the best approach is to provide good solid education based on facts and science and allow each individual to make a choice. Sadly, there is a pandemic of misinformation in our world today that has bred confusion and mistrust in our healthcare community. Propagating fear and mandating things will not restore that trust but will only add ammunition to those who spread misinformation. “To penalize nursing homes by withholding or withdrawing funding is not the right way to increase vaccination rates. Without Medicaid and Medicare funding, nursing homes cannot provide the quality care that our nation's most vulnerable older adults need. Our mission-driven nursing home, (LeadingAge) members, who operate on narrow margins in the best of times, depend on those funds alone to care for their residents. They cannot bear additional financial losses after more than a year of shouldering historic COVID-related costs. “The (Biden) administration is right; we are on wartime footing. Defunding the care providers who continue to fight on the frontlines would be a tragic misstep. Americans agree that elected officials have failed older adults and the people who care for them by ignoring and underfunding America’s aging services for decades. (Link here: https://leadingage.org/.../Survey%20-%20Investing%20in...) “We await more information from the administration about how and when this new requirement will take effect, and look forward to learning more details on CMS’ reported plans to work with nursing homes, employees and other stakeholders to increase staff vaccination rates in advance of the effective date.” —Katie Smith Sloan * * * * * A wise sister in the Lord just stepped into my office and said “God will provide if He wants this ministry to continue – right?” The answer to that is YES, without a doubt. With that in mind, I would like to solicit prayer for the following decisions that Fairview Haven will undoubtedly face in the days ahead: 1. Regardless of one’s own personal opinion, there are team members who may be faced with leaving a career they love and were called to in order to stand on their convictions and feelings. Please pray that God will help them sort this out. 2. When team members make this decision, it could leave Fairview Haven (and all nursing homes) struggling with staffing shortages. Already, most nursing homes are struggling to find adequate staffing. While Fairview Haven has been blessed to be able to attract and retain high quality staff, a vaccine mandate may present a staffing challenge like we’ve never faced. Pray that God will fill the positions needed to continue this ministry as HE wishes. 3. Pray about a career in healthcare and, especially, long term care. We need high-quality individuals who have a calling to serve our seniors. This will be an ongoing need, regardless of vaccine mandates. The mandates will just add to the struggles. 4. Pray for the Administrative team and Board of Directors as we face decisions regarding the mandate. Likely, we will face difficult decisions, such as potentially scaling back the number of residents we can care for, reducing the number of Medicaid certified beds, etc. These are difficult times where our integrity will be challenged. Pray that God will help us discern the steps we should take to uphold the long-standing principles and values of Fairview Haven in light of the current situation. 5. On Saturday, July 31, Fairview Haven started another covid outbreak. This time around has been a little different as lessons have been learned and regulations have been updated. However, the same nightmare awaits us every day as we have many times seen the light at the end of the tunnel only to hear of yet another positive test. Our team is full of committed heroes! They work tirelessly to mitigate the spread of covid and care for those who test positive, often picking up extra shifts to cover for team members who themselves need to quarantine or picking up extra time to help staff the “covid unit.” 6. Please pray for our team and our residents! There are so many perspectives in the world regarding Covid-19. To many, it has been a pandemic that has touched their lives by limiting their social interactions and causing them inconveniences. To some, the pandemic has taken an economic toll. To some, it is considered a disease completely politicized and overblown to further the agenda of one party or another. To our residents, it has been a time of fear, loneliness and discouragement. To our team, it has been an emotional nightmare. We’ve watched as our residents linger in depths of despair. We’ve cried as we see the fear in a resident’s eyes when they hear they’ve tested positive. We listened and tried to help as they gasped for air and struggled to breathe. And our hearts broke when we felt the defeat of watching them take that last breath, when we lost people we loved. At the beginning of the pandemic, healthcare workers were hailed as heroes. Today, in many ways, they feel forgotten, unsupported and ostracized. We are still here, fighting the daily battle, and depending so much on the strength of our great God and on your prayers. -Dave Blunier, Administrator, Fairview Haven We interviewed a number of our Fairview Haven team members regarding their questions about covid and, particularly, the covid vaccines. Following is a link to a video created by Fairview Haven’s medical director, Dr. Sam Steffen of Lexington, and Dr. Heather Schweizer of Fairbury, who is one of our physician partners at Fairview Haven. Dr. Steffen and Dr. Schweizer provide answers to the questions asked by our team members. We thought it would be helpful to share here also. Please let us know if you have any questions. Here's a link to our recent Facebook Live Covid Update on 8/10/21:
COVID Update: So we have had positive tests of two team members and one resident in the past 48 hours. This means Fairview Haven is again closed. We can't host visitors at this time and residents aren't able to go out. The good news is that Serenity Villa, Fairview Suites and Fairview Estates had no positive tests so they are still able to have visitors and go out into the community. Visitors need to schedule visits, screen in at the reception desk at Fairview Haven and wear masks during the entire visit - whether vaccinated or unvaccinated. Also we are setting temporary visiting hours to help us manage the screening processes - the hours are: 8 AM-5 PM Monday thru Friday and 8 AM-7 PM Saturday and Sunday. Please let us know if you have any questions. And we certainly appreciate your prayers!
Yesterday CDC published new guidance for the public about what those who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 can now safely do. In addition, CDC released updated Healthcare Infection Prevention and Control Recommendations in response to the COVID-19 Vaccination.
While we are excited to see CDC progressing towards normalcy in their guidance, Fairview Haven must continue to abide by the regulations of Illinois Department of Public Health and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. While these agencies have not yet issued updates to the regulations, so far they eventually follow the CDC recommendations. In these recommendations, the nursing home is given significant freedom to begin lifting restrictions for at least our fully vaccinated residents and visitors. Fairview Haven will not mandate our residents, team members or visitors to get vaccinated for COVID-19 and will respect everyone’s individual decision about the COVID-19 vaccine, although we do strongly support vaccination as a means to protect our residents and move forward towards the normalcy we all so strongly desire. We promote that everyone should utilize trusted sources, such as their family physician, when making this decision. With that being said, I feel obligated to share with you that we believe in the coming days, persons (visitors and residents) who are vaccinated will have less restrictions at Fairview Haven than those who are not. While this may not be our choice, as a licensed facility, we will follow the law. We look forward to a day soon when all restrictions can be lifted, but until then, there likely will be distinctions made. If you have questions or just want information about the COVID-19 vaccination, please feel free to reach out to Dave Blunier, Brandon Stoller or Lila Fehr, or private message Fairview Haven. If you're planning to visit Fairview Haven, please read the following:
Greetings, It’s been a couple of months since we’ve done a public update regarding our COVID-19 policies and procedures here at Fairview Haven. Recently, we have updated our policies due to guidance changes from CDC, CMS and IDPH. Please understand that if and when you see changes of guidance in the news, it doesn’t always mean that changes are going to happen at Fairview Haven. We are required to satisfy more than one governing body and are often required to do a risk assessment before making any changes. The Fairview Haven COVID task force is constantly monitoring CMS (our federal regulatory body), IDPH (our state regulatory body) and CDC. We also keep in constant communication with six other Apostolic Christian Homes in Illinois through our shared “Corporate” nurse. With recent updates from CDC, CMS and IDPH, Fairview Haven has revised its COVID-19 Infection Control policy. In essence, we have adopted nine core principles for COVID-19 Infection Prevention. Fairview Haven will adhere to these core principles as best as we can as we implement policies and procedures for the safety, dignity and well-being of our residents. Of the nine core principles, there are four that we need everyone’s help with. 1. Screening – anyone entering Fairview Haven is required to go through a screening process. Visitors who have been in close contact with individuals diagnosed with COVID-19 in the past 14 days, have been diagnosed themselves with COVID in the past 10 days or have signs and symptoms that could indicate COVID-19 will not be permitted to visit at this time. If you are cleared to visit, you will be asked to wear a name badge at all times to show our staff you have been cleared for entry to the building. 2. Hand Hygiene – It is very important that residents, team members and visitors are using proper hand hygiene at Fairview Haven. There are hand sanitizer stations placed throughout the building for your use, please use them! 3. Face covering or mask – Visitors on our campus are required to have their mouth and nose covered with a cloth face covering (or disposable facemask) anytime they are in our building or around our residents. Residents are expected to wear a face covering when they leave their room or when they have a visitor with them. And team members are required to wear a face mask at all times (with exceptions for breaks) at Fairview Haven as well. 4. Social Distancing – 6 feet is the magic number according to CDC. Visitors must maintain social distancing as much as possible. Understand, at this time, vaccinated residents (those who have a teddy bear on their door) are allowed physical contact. Unfortunately, during contact the mask must continue to cover the mouth and nose. The visitor guidance and outing guidance (available at the front desk and on our website on our COVID-19 page) is developed with these core principles in mind. A few highlights that all visitors must comply with: 1. Please call and schedule any visit or outing. This allows us to ensure that the resident is available and ready for your visit. Unfortunately at this time we are still required to monitor all visits – we do this by asking you to leave the resident’s door open so that our staff can monitor without disturbing your visit. 2. There is no longer a limit on the number of visitors a resident may have. We are only limited by the number of people that can fit in the visiting area and still maintain 6 feet between the visitors and the resident. When you schedule your visit, please indicate how many visitors there will be. 3. No roaming: When you come for a visit, you will be escorted to your resident’s room (or designated visiting area) and you will be asked to leave directly after the visit. You may not stop to visit with other residents and/or team members. 4. You must wear a face covering at all times and practice social distancing as much as practicable. 5. If you develop symptoms within 3 days after your visit, you must notifiy the Administrator or Director of Nursing. 6. As you take residents out on outings, please remember the core principles. While we can’t monitor outings, we do ask that you follow IDPH guidance which includes: a. Masking at all times b. Social Distancing where applicable. Physical touch allowed for vaccinated residents. c. You can remove mask for eating, but always remember the core principles of COVID safety. d. Limit gatherings to those that comply with IDPH guidance. <50 people, masking, etc. Residents will never be declined their right to leave Fairview Haven. However, if guidance is not followed, we must enact quarantine upon return for the safety of other residents and team members. Outings and visits will be available so long as our county positivity rate remains below 10%, IDPH does not impose mitigation efforts AND Fairview Haven is not experiencing an outbreak. An outbreak is classified as ONE facility acquired or associated case. Again, you can find this guidance posted on our webpage under COVID-19 as well as at our main reception area. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to Dave Blunier, Brandon Stoller or Lila Fehr if you have any questions about what is acceptable and what is not. Thank you for all your support over the past year. It has been a long journey and unfortunately we must remain vigilant. While we see light at the end of the tunnel we are not to the end. I implore you to continue to be diligent in following the guidelines developed by Fairview Haven to remain in compliance with CDC, CMS, IDPH and to keep our residents safe. By doing so, you are doing your part to help maintain a home where life is lived in abundance and keep Fairview Haven on the path to fully reopening. |
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