A Florida task force will recommend reopening assisted living communities and nursing homes to visitors, lifting a six-month COVID-19 moratorium.
The Task Force on the Safe and Limited Reopening of Long Term Care Facilities met Wednesday to work out details on a plan to allow visitors back into senior living communities and nursing homes. Recommendations will be formalized and presented to Gov. Ron DeSantis as early as today.
Gail Matillo, president and CEO of the Florida Senior Living Association, is representing assisted living communities on the task force. She told McKnight’s Senior Living that she was “excited to see a lot of our suggestions were accepted,” including input on “essential caregivers” and social distancing.
“For the most part, our communities want visitation,” Matillo said, adding that the recommendations are a “living document” and subject to review and updates. “It was really good to work with the task force. We were able to reach consensus pretty quickly.”
The recommendations include allowing people deemed essential caregivers to help with activities of daily living, and compassionate caregivers for end-of-life, hardship or comfort visits. These visitors — not general visitors — would be allowed to get closer than six feet to residents, would be required to wear personal protective equipment and would receive infection prevention and control training.
The recommendations for general visitation include the need for appointments, sufficient staffing to support visitor management, visitor screening, no COVID-19 positive cases at a facility in the past 14 days, limitations on numbers of visitors and length of visits, social distancing and face mask use.
Testing and visitation locations will be left to individual facilities. The task force also is not recommending requiring — but is instead “encouraging” — assisted living communities, group homes and nursing homes to allow general visitors.
The task force also recommended that beauty salon and barber services resume to “help improve resident morale and quality of life.” Criteria for resuming those services are similar to requirements for essential caregivers and include the use of a surgical mask and gloves, as well as hand hygiene.
Additional recommendations were provided for medical appointments. Residents leaving a facility for medical appointments would be required to wear a face mask at all times, if they can tolerate it, and must be screened upon return to the facility. Eye protection also is encouraged.
Healthcare providers serving residents on site must comply with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention requirements for PPE, go through screening and comply with infection control requirements.
