April 02, 2020

Today's COVID-19 Alert: ODH Updates, In-State Testing Ordered

Here are the latest need-to-know updates for Thursday, April 2 regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.

ODH Sends Out 10 New Documents

On Wednesday, April 1, ODH sent four EIDC Bulletin emails to providers. These emails contained a total of 10 documents.

The documents sent by ODH can be found here:

In the Health Alert Guidance for Utilizing and Optimizing Personal Protective Equipment, ODH is recommending all staff in long-term care facilities wear a surgical/medical facemask to avoid asymptomatic transmission of COVID-19 to residents and other staff. This guidance goes above the CDC guidance to implement a universal wearing of facemasks for facilities with positive COVID-19 residents. The ODH attachments also included instructions on the reuse of Medical/Surgical Masks and N95 Respirators.

The PPE Contingency Planning document is a tool for facilities to use to implement the three PPE contingency strategies based on availability of supplies and resident exposure.

The Strategies for Optimizing PPE is a word document that compiles the CDC guidance. ODH provided links that can be used for training on the use of PPE, which are included in the Printable Instructions and Videos document, along with other information that can be incorporated into staff and family communication.

ODH included information on COVID-19 testing in a Health Alert summarizing the updated guidance on testing, the specimen submission form, and the criteria for testing.

Lastly, ODH provided a notice on fingerprinting that includes a list and contact information for Sheriff’s office conducting fingerprinting and instructions on obtaining a listing of LiveScan vendors.

ODH included the information and link to the CDC’s Asymptomatic and Presymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 Infections in Residents of a Long-Term Care Skilled Nursing Facility — King County, Washington, March 2020 that was released on March 27.

ODH Provides Background Check Update

Yesterday, the Ohio Department of Health (ODH) provided an update on background checks. 

"Nursing homes, residential care facilities, and hospices are required to conduct criminal records checks on all applicants under final consideration for employment in a direct care position. These criminal records checks must be performed by the Attorney General's Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI). A provider may conditionally employ applicants for up to 30 days while BCI performs the criminal records check. If the results of the criminal records check show the applicant has been convicted of a disqualifying offense, that applicant may still be hired under personal character standards if the offense is not one listed in paragraph (A) of rule 3701-13-06.

The Ohio Department of Health has heard anecdotal evidence from providers that LiveScan (electronic fingerprinting) providers are closed and the criminal records checks cannot be run.  While ODH knows that some LiveScan vendors are not currently conducting checks, many still are open, including most sheriff's offices across Ohio.

To be clear, the law and rules do not require the fingerprinting to be done in the applicant's county of residence, or the county in which the provider is located.  Fingerprinting can be conducted at any LiveScan terminal in Ohio.   A list of the sheriff's offices, along with their address and contact information is attached.  Additionally, a listing of LiveScan vendors can be found on the Attorney General's website at: https://www.ohioattorneygeneral.gov/Business/Services-for-Business/WebCheck/Webcheck-Community-Listing

Providers are encouraged to call to ensure the vendor or sheriff's office is open and verify their business hours before referring applicants to a community site."

Acton Orders In-State Testing

Yesterday, Director of Health Dr. Amy Acton signed an order which requires hospitals and health departments conducting COVID-19 testing to use labs in nearby hospitals instead of sending tests to private labs, which have been returning results at many days’ lag. The order also encourages hospitals, freestanding emergency centers and urgent care centers to attempt to acquire COVID-19 rapid testing capability if they do not currently have it.

Finally, ODH’s lab is asking for certain tests to be prioritized, notably those for hospitalized patients, symptomatic health care workers, residents of long-term care facilities with symptoms, first responders with symptoms, and finally, older Ohioans or those with underlying conditions, with symptoms and testing referred from a hospital or emergency department.

Ohio Manufacturing Alliance to Assist on PPE

Governor DeWine announced yesterday the establishment of the Ohio Manufacturing Alliance to fight COVID-19. This is a collaborative public-private partnership tasked with coordinating efforts to provide healthcare workers and first responders the PPE they need to safely care for patients.

The state is encouraging manufacturers that have the capability to produce any of the in-demand PPE supplies to visit RepurposingProject.com.

LeadingAge Recommends Free COVID-19 Training, Certificate 

NextStep, a startup that trains and places workers into high-demand healthcare roles, created an online course designed to improve the safety of caregivers of all kinds working with COVID-19 patients in all settings. The COVID-Ready Caregiver program uses expert-developed online learning to help develop critical skills for safety during the pandemic. Now that CMS has waived most nurse aide training requirements, this certification course can supplement other nurse aide training to ensure you are meeting competency requirements.   

Staff of LeadingAge members can access the course at no cost through April 10. Use code COVIDCERTNOW at check-out. You can hear about the training from NextStep’s Charissa Raynor on today’s 3:30 live update from LeadingAge. 

LeadingAge is curating many offers from businesses wanting to help members get through the coronavirus crisis. New offers are posted on the LeadingAge website now; more are added each week.

Low-income Senior Housing Resource from LeadingAge

LeadingAge staff experts are developing essential guidance and tools, and curating the most relevant resources for aging services providers. LeadingAge has provided a helpful document on Relief and Infrastructure Investment for Low Income Senior Housing.

Today's LeadingAge Call Focused on Housing/Adult Day

Today's daily LeadingAge member call is focused on affordable housing and adult day, in addition to other pressing topics. Dennis Adams of Christopher Homes in New Orleans, an affordable housing provider, will join the call, and LeadingAge's Brendan Flinn will talk about adult day providers and coronavirus and describe the new SBA loans that are available. Charissa Raynor will join to discuss the NextStep COVID training described above. 

More than 3,000 members are registered for the calls. Members can register here, and only have to register one time and will then be registered for a 3:30 call every day through April 26.

Ohio Statistics: 2,547 Cases, 65 Deaths

As of yesterday, the Ohio Department of Health confirmed there were 2,547 confirmed COVID-19 cases, 222 ICU admissions, 679 hospitalizations, and 65 deaths as a result of the pandemic.

More data is available on the COVID-19 Dashboard.

Questions

Please send all questions to COVID19@leadingageohio.org. Additionally, members are encouraged to visit the LeadingAge Ohio COVID-19 Working Group facebook group to pose questions to peers and share best practices.