Connecticut Department of Public Health acting commissioner issues order expanding nursing home visitations
Connecticut Department of Public Health Acting Commissioner Dr. Deidre Gifford today issued an order expanding visitation in Connecticut nursing homes and clarifying for all long-term care facilities their obligations to facilitate visitations however possible to keep residents connected to loved ones on the outside on a regular basis. Since March 9, 2020, in-person visitation has been prohibited in Connecticut nursing homes, except for compassionate care visits only in the case where the resident is in the end stages of life when death is imminent.
The purpose of restricting visitation has been to reduce the risk that anyone from the outside could bring COVID-19 infection into a nursing home and endanger the health of residents or staff. Socially distanced visitation has permitted outside at nursing homes since May. The Department of Public Health has encouraged and facilitated as much virtual visitation as possible between nursing home residents and loved ones through the purchase of 800 iPad tablet devices that make video conversations possible.
Commissioner Gifford’s new order on visitation takes the following actions:
General Visitation
- Clarifies that visits may occur more than once per week;
- Requires nursing homes to develop a facility-wide visitation policy;
- Requires facilities to assess the psychosocial needs of each resident and develop individualized visitation plans to meet those needs;
- Extends the minimum time for perimeter visits (e.g. window visits, socially distanced outdoor visits) from 20 minutes to 30 minutes; and
- Requires facilities to designate no less than five days per week as visitation days, one of which shall be a Saturday or Sunday, from which a resident’s visitation schedule can be devised.
Compassionate Care Visits
- Confirms that compassionate care visits may take place indoors and do not require social distancing (touching allowed), as long as visitors and residents wear the appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) as determined and supplied by the nursing home;
- Expands compassionate care visits beyond end-of-life visits to include visits for residents who undergo significant change in physical, mental, or psychosocial condition including:
- Weight loss;
- Increased sleeping, confusion or agitation;
- Delirium or other decline in cognition; and
- New onset or increase of symptoms of mental illness;
- Requires change of condition to be determined in consultation with resident’s physician, physician assistant, or advance practice registered nurse;
- Requires Facilities to suspend expanded Compassionate Care visits for significant changes in physical, mental, or psychosocial conditions whenever the Facility experiences an outbreak of COVID-19.This suspension must be maintained until the Facility has complied with Executive Order No. 7AAA to test nursing home staff and residents weekly, and has had no positive COVID-19 cases among staff or residents for 14 days. A facility is deemed to have a COVID-19 outbreak when the facility has at least one COVID-19 positive case among staff or residents.
Connecticut Department of Public Health issues citations against two nursing homes for violating governor’s COVID-19 testing order
The Connecticut Department of Public Health today announced that it has issued citations against two nursing homes – one in Hartford and one in Hamden – for violating Governor Lamont’s Executive Order No. 7AAA, which requires nursing homes to test staff and residents weekly for COVID-19. In each case, the nursing homes failed to properly implement the testing policy, under which all staff and residents are required to be tested for COVID-19 weekly until the facility records 14 days of testing with no new positive cases. Testing is being 100 percent funded by state and federal dollars through October 31, 2020.
Fines were issued against the following facilities:
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