To all of our valued employees, facilities, patients and families,
We know medical care in home or staffing medical professional to hospitals, hospices, rehabs, or other healthcare facility is vitally important at this time. We want to keep you safe, while helping you keep your family, our employees, and others safe. We are open to serve you and to be an integral part of your own safety plan!!!
We wanted to take a moment to assure you that we put our customers’ and employees’ health above all else. We have been watching the recommendations laid out by OSHA, WHO, the CDC, and our industry daily, and are taking many precautions to keep everyone safe. The following policies have now been put in place:
1. We are asking every client to please advise us if the location has had a known exposure (confirmed or suspected Covid-19), or if anyone in the household or working in the business in the last two weeks has had a fever, cough, sore throat, headache, diarrhea, lost of taste or smell, is feeling ill, has been exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 (the virus responsible for Covid-19). If this applies to you, we ask you please communicate this to us prior to any of our employees commencing work in your location. If you find any of these questions to be true AFTER we have already worked there and one or more of our employees may have been unknowingly exposed, please communicate this at once to our office by calling (602) 266-3433. We will work with you to staff your location with informed, consenting employees, if we can. We will also take precautions to notify employees if they have been exposed and to have them take the appropriate post-exposure steps.
2. No employee is allowed to work if they are ill, if anyone in their household is ill, or if they have knowingly been exposed to SARS-CoV-2. If they have been exposed, they are to discontinue work and urged to follow the CDC recommended current guidelines for self-isolation or quarantine. If they become ill, they are urged to follow the CDC Guidelines for “If You Are Sick," and “When You Can Be Around Others."
3. Effective immediately, every employee will be required to practice social distancing while working as much as practical, and we are requiring they wear 3-ply masks and gloves during every low-risk shift to lessen the probability of contamination for both our clients and employees. Should we run out of masks, employees will be required to wear something similar such as a bandana to cover their nose and mouth, or clients will be asked if the prefer we reschedule.
4. Employees will be required to use Alcohol hand sanitizer of 60% strength or above immediately before entering a home or facility. They will be trained in proper 20-second hand-washing techniques and instructed to wash hands frequently. Employees will also wash their or use 60%+ sanitizer after leaving a home or facility.
5. Any equipment we own (or manage) will be wiped down with sanitizer daily (if it is part of our assigned scope). We will utilize clients’ cleaning supplies whenever possible. We will encourage clients to supply their own towels, equipment and supplies during the pandemic. Thank you for your understanding and for working with us to help the community.
6. Our employees are attending in-services to educate them on the facts regards SARS-CoV-2 and Covid-19, the risks involved in working in low risk or high probability situations, how to evaluate their risk, how to stay protected, how to conduct their daily tasks with the least amount of risk, and educating them regarding their rights, which include their right to not work at a location if they feel unsafe or inadequately protected.
7. We are taking a little extra time in each location to wipe down areas we may potentially contaminate. Therefore, we are carrying extra sanitizers when we can (stock is getting low), and asking clients if we can use their sanitizers for these extra items.
8. We are following the CDC guidelines closely and will communicate any changes to our policies as their recommendations change. Here are a few helpful links to FAQs about Covid-19:
- CDC – 15 Days to Slow the Spread of Covid-19
- How to keep a home with a Covid-19 person clean – for homeowners
- How to keep homes with a Covid-19 person clean – for facilities
- WHO World Health Organization Covid-19 Q&A
- OSHA – Recommendations for Healthcare Workers
If you need post exposure cleaning, now might be a great time to contact our cleaning division to schedule a Covid-19 post exposure clean. Here is a link to our main commercial cleaning services page. (We offer free covid-19 preparedness plan assistance, as well as pre- and post-exposure services. We have the ability to help you in the first 24-hours through the use of hepa air scrubbers when windows and doors cannot remain open, cdc recommended guidelines for post-exposure cleaning, and electrostatic disinfection application.)
If you have any questions regarding these new policies or anything else regarding our company, please feel free to give us a call. We are a very resilient nation and State. These are truly uncharted times and we’re learning right with you as we navigate COVID–19 together. We are proud of our employees and their dedication, and we will always do what’s best for those employees and our customers. And, here is a link back to our main home page.
Thank you,
Mark Finkelstein
President
IRS / CWC