Keeping Our Clients Safe and Healthy
Dear Connected clients and families:
These are especially frightening times for those of us over 60 or with aging parents. You may be rethinking who has contact with senior family members and how much contact they have - is it worth the risk of exposure?
While we can’t answer those questions for you, we can promise you that the Connected Home Care team is doing everything possible to keep our clients and caregivers safe. We are working closely with the Massachusetts Executive Office of Elder Affairs and updating our processes and guidance accordingly - but we’re also proactively adding safety processes and training caregivers.
We are the first home care agency in Massachusetts to electronically screen both caregivers and clients for COVID-19 at every visit.
As always, we strive to deliver the best home care services in the state and will continue to look for ways to make sure our clients and caregivers are safe.
Best,
Jim Reynolds, CEO of Connected Home Care, LLC
Here is more information on our safety practices as of today:
How will you keep me or my family member safe?
Healthy clients - We screen each client at the beginning of a visit. If the client reports signs of illness or the caregiver observes any, it triggers a call to a nurse, who can assess the situation and call the family or the responsible agency to arrange for medical intervention, if necessary. Our caregiver will also be placed on leave until that client's status is known.
Healthy caregivers - Each caregiver is screened before work each day; any signs of infection result in a caregiver being placed on leave for two weeks.
Caregiver training and certification - All of our caregivers are trained in standard precautions and best practices for infection control. All of our caregivers have also received specialized COVID-19 certification to help them identify signs of potential COVID-19 infection and apply best practices for reducing the spread of the virus to the people most at risk of serious illness from it.
Our proactive approach - Infection control is a part of our standard process for each visit. In response to the COVID-19 situation, we have added:
- Use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for every visit - rubber gloves, hand sanitizer, and masks
- Cleaning and disinfecting all high touch surfaces at the start and end of all visits
- More frequent handwashing
- Electronic reminders and visit checklists to make sure caregivers complete all infection control steps
Communication and reporting - Visit reports can all be accessed through our online Family Portal by authorized family and medical professionals.
- Families have full visibility into every caregiver visit - arrival and departure times, visit notes, health status and any symptoms reported
- Caregivers receive electronic checklists and reminders to follow best practices around safety and infection control, without losing focus on the client
- Our nursing staff is automatically notified if any concerning symptoms, like a fever, are logged for a client