News Channel 3 checks in with other skilled nursing facilities in the Valley who are battling COVID-19

There are more than 650 cases of coronavirus in Riverside County within nursing and assisted living homes as of April 28.

These facilities present a unique challenge due to the age, health conditions of the residents, and the close proximity they are to each other.

News Channel 3 continues to follow up with several skilled nursing facilities in the Coachella Valley that currently have or have had patients with the virus.

We reached out to all of the following facilities in the Coachella Valley to find out how they’re working to keep their staff and residents safe.

• Indio Nursing Rehabilitation Center
• Manor Care Palm Desert
• The Palms at La Quinta
• Rancho Mirage Health and Rehabilitation Center - currently has no patients or staff with COVID-19.

The Palms at La Quinta gave KESQ News Channel 3 an official statement:

Our top priority at The Palms at La Quinta Assisted Living & Memory Care is ensuring the health and safety of our residents and staff. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, we have been continuously evaluating and enhancing our infection control protocol as needed, based on the guidelines set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). We also remain in close contact with the Riverside County Department of Public Health and the California Health Department. To protect all those who live and work in our community, we have implemented the following protocols:

• Continual education and monitoring regarding virus prevention and encouraging staff to stay home with any sort of symptoms
• Implementing very specific and extensive disinfecting protocols to include additional housekeeping staff focused solely on disinfection
• Restricting kitchen staff to the kitchen and restricting all other staff from entering the kitchen.
• Restricting assisted living staff from the memory care neighborhood and memory care staff from the assisted living neighborhood.
• Utilizing personal protective equipment to include gloves, gowns, and booties when providing care.
• Utilizing masks at all times
• Cancelling all group activities and non-urgent transportation
• Restricting visitor policies to essential only

In an effort to help ensure all members of our community are safe, we worked with the Riverside County Department of Public Health to test our residents and staff on April 22. As of today, we can confirm that 15 residents and nine staff members have tested positive for COVID-19. We have notified every resident (or their legal representative) who has tested positive, and we are prioritizing best practices as we care for them. All staff members who have tested positive are self-quarantining at home until they are cleared by the Riverside County Department of Public Health.

STATEMENT FOR MANORCARE HEALTH SERVICES – PALM DESERT

When we first realized that the novel Coronavirus reached the United States earlier this year, we began putting precautions in place such as checking and monitor for symptoms of the novel Coronavirus for all visitors, patients and employees.  Then on March 14, we added more precautions such as eliminating group activities and most visitors except for end of life reasons. We also implemented universal masking of our employees.

The Department of Health notified ManorCare Health Services – Palm Desert, a not-for-profit, mission-focused skilled nursing and rehabilitation center, that we have confirmed positive cases of the novel Coronavirus. We know that the frail and elderly are especially susceptible to this virus. That’s why we are in close communication with our local health department, CDC and CMS to ensure we have the latest information and resources available.  The health and well-being of our patients and employees remains our top priority.  

We have taken significant additional precautions to minimize risk to patients and employees and have had systems and processes in place to help reduce the risks associated with the novel Coronavirus. We have precautionary measures designed to protect the safety and health of patients, employees and authorized visitors. We are:

• Holding new admissions.
• Taking regular symptom and temperature checks of all residents. We have reduced our temperature threshold to 99 degrees so we can address any change in condition rapidly.
• Increased our sanitizing and cleaning processes.

• Reviewing all inventory for personal protective equipment, such as masks and gowns, and educating staff on proper use and disposal.
• Working with the Department of Health, CDC and the community to minimize any additional risk.
• Staying connected with families.
• Regular updates and in-servicing of our care team.
• Working with supply chain to ensure we have the appropriate PPE supplies.

Our precaution measures include creating an Airborne Isolation Unit (CAIU) as part of our infection control and treatment plan. This means:

• We will designate an isolation unit for patients who meet our isolation criteria (higher risk patients).
• The unit will have barriers installed to protect other residents and employees and keep higher risk patients in a focused treatment area.
• We will have personal protective equipment dedicated to this unit.
• As much as possible, we will have dedicated staff on the unit in CDC-approved Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). This means respiratory masks, gowns, face shields or goggles and gloves.
• Special cleaning, disposal, laundry and sanitizing measures will be enforced.

Whether we have a novel Coronavirus positive case, can get tests, are waiting for test results or have patients who may need additional monitoring, we manage the risk at the same level of intensity and commitment by adding enhanced monitoring and screening as well as putting into place isolation practices for patients or quarantine for employees.

We communicate directly with employees, patients and their families if they are affected or if there is a risk of exposure in our facility. This information is constantly changing and for us to report that information publicly may just add concern and fear rather than allay it. We are happy to address any concerns or questions employees, patients and families have directly with them.

We are doing everything we can to minimize risks associated with the novel Coronavirus in our facility. We are in very close communication with our medical director, clinical support team, and local and state health officials about the appropriate steps to serve the best interests of our patients, employees and visitors. We are instructing our staff and patients to follow the recommended preventative actions. We appreciate the Department of Health’s support in identifying and addressing this issue as well. We continue to take every precaution to prevent the spread of the infection and keep families informed.

The center currently is caring for seven COVID-19 positive patients in-house under the facility’s airborne isolation precautions.

STATEMENT ON TAKING ON ADDITIONAL PATIENTS

ManorCare Health Services – Palm Desert was contacted to help assist with displaced skilled nursing facility residents.  We took this request very seriously and met with our clinical and medical team before making any decision. Our team is committed to helping the community in any way we can.

We realize that this is a monumental challenge to ask of our staff and acknowledging that the frail and elderly are especially susceptible to any virus, we are acting out of an abundance of caution and putting into place our isolation measures and precautions to meet this need.  We have built isolation units with their own entrances to help care for newly admitted patients without interfering with other parts of the center. These precautions will ensure the safest possible environment for our employees and patients.

We will do our best to have dedicated staff on our isolation unit. We do require staff to wear full PPE while working on the isolation unit so that also reduces any risk of spread. We also have universal masking and enhanced screening and monitoring in place for all employees and patients (we use a series of symptom questions and reduced temperature screen to help catch any issues early). The isolation unit has an ante chamber for employees to safely don and doff PPE without contamination. We also contacted family members to let them know what is happening at the center.

We want to thank our wonderful employees for taking on this challenge in a compassionate and committed manner. 

While these facilities are doing what they can to help keep their patients safe, an SOS team is working to support the staff members.

“The SOS teams are our Skilled Nursing Facilities Outreach and Support teams," Shane Reichardt, Senior Public Information Specialist with County of Riverside Emergency Management Department told News Channel 3. "We put together these teams to be able to go out and conduct some outreach, educate them and bring them up to speed on what we know about COVID-19,” he said.

A team of about eight to 10 people come out and help staff properly use their PPE as well as answer questions.

"We sent out a behavioral health specialist to be able to talk to them about the emotional support side of that because there’s a lot of rumors and misinformation and a lot of concern when you’re working around somebody who might be contagious,” Reichardt said.

These teams visit the nursing facilities on a regular basis.

“The teams are not going out to these facilities to inspect them," Reichardt said. "They are licensed through the state of California and our goal is really to support them through a county level, to let them know what county resources are available to them and to make sure they have good, correct information for their staff and also to share with their residents,” he added.

These SOS teams have gone out to more than 144 facilities, some with patients who have coronavirus and some without, all in Riverside County.