Manor of the Plains reports more COVID-19 testing results
With the completion of resident testing and employee surveillance testing on November 18, Manor of the Plains reports confirmation of one positive resident and one positive essential health care worker.
The senior living community tested employees Monday, November 16, through our partner lab, and employees and assisted living and health care residents Wednesday utilizing rapid point-of-care tests. With all results in, one employee tested positive with a rapid point-of-care test November 18 and was confirmed positive when the results of Monday’s test was received later in the day. The employee, who has been asymptomatic, last worked Wednesday. The employee passed pre-shift screening and wore personal protective equipment as required. When the POC test returned a positive result, the employee was immediately notified and sent home to quarantine. No additional employees tested positive for the virus in either round of testing.
A health care resident tested positive with a rapid point-of-care test on Sunday, November 15. That result was confirmed with the receipt of Monday’s test results. All other assisted living and health care residents tested negative for the virus. The resident is being cared for by designated staff in our COVID-19 isolation area. Team members are following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) infection prevention protocols and physician’s orders.
We will follow CDC and KDHE guidelines for when the resident may come out of isolation. Under the current guidelines, symptomatic residents may leave isolation when at least 72 hours have passed since resolution of the resident’s fever without the use of fever-reducing medications and the resident’s symptoms have improved and at least 10 days have passed since symptoms first appeared. Asymptomatic positive residents will quarantine for 14 days.
These two cases bring our 7-day case total to one employee and one resident.
We have notified the Ford County Health Department and will continue with ongoing twice weekly surveillance testing. Our next scheduled testing date is Monday, November 23. Residents will be tested with employees later in the week.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has mandated surveillance testing of our staff. Surveillance testing requires all employees, agency employees, volunteers, hospice, lab and therapy providers at our campus to be tested on a frequency determined by our county’s COVID-19 testing positivity rate. Based on our county positivity rate for COVID-19 tests, our campus is testing staff twice a week.
We follow CDC and KDHE guidelines in determining when an employee may return to work. Under the current CDC and KDHE guidelines, the employee may return to work when at least 72 hours have passed since resolution of the employee’s fever without the use of fever-reducing medications and the employee’s symptoms have improved and at least 10 days have passed since symptoms first appeared. Upon the employee’s return to work, we will follow CDC recommendations related to work practices and restrictions.
Asymptomatic employees must quarantine for 14 days.
Employees are encouraged to follow CDC guidelines and best practices as these are continually updated. The community regularly reinforces with all employees that an employee should not report to work if he or she is experiencing symptoms of a respiratory illness or is not feeling well.
For more information about Manor of the Plains’ response, go to PMMA’s (Presbyterian Manors of Mid-America’s) website, presbyterianmanors.org/media-room.
