COVID-19 Status Update

Update 9/3/20

Cappella Pueblo West Team Member Tests Positive

We want to inform you that we have received confirmation that a team member has tested positive for the COVID-19 virus. The team member last worked on August 27th and had no symptoms at that time. The team member became symptomatic on August 31st and was tested that day, we received the positive test result this afternoon.

Personal phone calls have been made to all resident families and team members. All team members are wearing surgical masks and gloves when providing resident care. We continue to take the temperatures of residents and team members and are closely monitoring everyone for signs and symptoms of COVID-19. Currently, no one else is displaying symptoms.

All federal, state, county, and community standards and protocols are in place for the identification, isolation and eradication of COVID-19 virus in our community. Resident and team member safety is our top priority.

The entire community continues to operate under the CDC restricted status of limited communal dining, limited group life enrichment and only essential care visitors. Movement throughout the community is discouraged.

We will contact you if your loved one is suspected or diagnosed with COVID-19.

We have established a family hotline number, just for families to receive updated information, 719-224-9703. Please limit your calls to family members only seeking information. For specific resident questions, please know someone may need to call you back after a message is relayed to care teams.

Additionally, we encourage family members to connect with your loved ones via a phone call or a video chat.

Please know we are working very hard to ensure the well-being of everyone who lives and works at our community. Together, we will get through this.

Update 9/3/20

Next Steps for Colorado Governor’s Guidance on Indoor Visits

We are as excited as our families and residents to hear the good news that Governor Polis and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) has given final guidance on allowing indoor visits within residential care communities.

There are six criteria that each community must meet before offering indoor visits ranging from the degree of virus spread in the greater community to baseline testing of team members and PPE availability. We are assessing our community’s eligibility to offer indoor visits based on the six criteria now, to read more detail please visit the CDPHE website.

If we meet these six criteria, then there are additional requirements of the person coming into the community. This includes being able to have documented proof of a negative Antigen COVID-19 test within 48 hours prior to the scheduled visit. Without that proof, and having results back within that time frame, we cannot accommodate an indoor visit.

We appreciate our resident and family member’s patience as we work through this new exciting guidance. In the meantime, we continue to offer outdoor visits, window, and plexiglass divider visits. Please continue to take advantage of these opportunities and technology-supported visits while implementing the Governor’s new directives. We are as anxious as you are and will quickly work to implement these visits as we are able.

We will host a special CLC-Cappella Colorado Communities Town Hall Webinar on Tuesday, September 8^th at 4:30pm MT for residents, families and team members to receive the latest progress towards implementation and what is required.

You can register for that webinar by clicking here.

Cappella of Pueblo West Begins Posting Critical Data Weekly as a Next Step towards Indoor Visitations

We are adding some very important information to our website for residents, families and team members. We will post two pieces of data that are critical to our COVID-19 testing process, and is one determining factor in our ability to offer indoor visits.

View the Current Week’s Data Here

County Case Rate Governor Polis and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) set six criteria that must be met before an indoor visit can be offered in assisted living and skilled nursing communities. The first is the degree of community spread which CDPHE mandates be measured as the county’s case rate. This is the rate of how many positive cases per 100,000 people over a two week time period. This is the first piece of data that we will now post on our website every week.

• A low or green case rate means we can offer visits without requiring visitors to have evidence of a negative COVID-19 test.
• A yellow or medium rate means we can offer visits, but must require visitors to show proof of a negative COVID-19 test 48 hours prior to the visit.
• A red or high rate means we cannot offer indoor visits.

County Positivity Rate The second piece of data is the county positivity rate. This determines how often we must conduct Routine (Mass) Testing of employees and contractors in skilled nursing neighborhoods as mandated by the Centers for Medicare/Medicaid Services (CMS). A rate below 5% requires testing only once a month, higher than that is once a week and above 10% will require twice a week.

This rate is important to keep an eye on for all levels of living including residential and assisted living, not just skilled nursing, as it is a key indicator of the risk in our county of spreading COVID-19.

Routine Testing Requirements for Skilled Nursing

Every week we will post both important pieces of data on our COVID-19 Updates page under the Weekly County Data Updates tab by the end of the day Monday.

Indoor Visits for Assisted Living and Skilled Nursing Requirements

In addition to the community spread rate each community must also meet five other criteria, conduct baseline testing of certain residents and staff, surveillance and outbreak testing, be outbreak-free, PPE supply must be adequate and critical staffing must be in place. To read more detail, please visit the CDPHE website.

Our community is currently working to conduct the required baseline testing in our regulated neighborhoods ( assisted living and skilled nursing, if applicable) Once we have successfully finished the testing and met the other five criteria then visitors must also meet the following criteria:

• Tested negative for COVID-19 within 48 hours of the visit and have documentation (from the time the test was collected) if the county is in the medium or high case rate level. The test must be a PCR (nasal swab) test, not a rapid POC (point of care) or an antibody test.
• Fever free, go through screening and have no known COVID-19 exposure
• Be 18 years old or older
• Schedule appointments in advance
• Wear masks and follow infection control guidelines such as washing hands prior to visiting and frequently throughout
• Limit visitation to residents only in designated areas

We know the connection with family is vital and we will implement visits as soon as we are able to. In the meantime, please continue to utilize outdoor patio visits and plexiglass visits as offered by your community as well as technology-supported connections. Care essential visits are still being accommodated at this time.

We invite you to watch the CLC-Cappella Town Hall webinar recording for Colorado communities where organizational leaders discussed these directives in detail.

Update 6/24/20

New Outdoor Visitation Guidelines

Per Governor Polis’s direction, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment released directives for outside visits with loved ones for people living in long-term care communities such as assisted living, memory support and skilled nursing. The directives require new operational protocols, which we are in the process of developing. In addition, team member training must take place before outside visits can be scheduled. We will provide an update on Cappella of Pueblo West’s ability to host these visits as soon as we can. We appreciate your patience.

Update 6/22/20

Cappella Pueblo West Clears State-Mandated Monitoring Period

We are pleased to share that Cappella Pueblo West has cleared the state-mandated COVID monitoring period for our team member who tested positive. We are so grateful to residents and families for their ongoing support, patience, and encouragement.

While many states are in various stages of reopening, government restrictions have not changed for senior living communities. We are still under restrictive CDC status. However, CLC-Cappella has formed a Health and Happiness Committee to re-evaluate our current procedures in order to strike a balance between the crucial need to maintain physical health with mental health leading to happiness. As we have changes in our policies we will keep you informed by phone call and updates here at this site. Additionally, we encourage family members to continue to connect with your loved ones via a phone call, video chat or a window visit.

All federal, state, county, and community standards and protocols remain in place for the identification, isolation and eradication of COVID-19 virus in our community. Please know we continue to work very hard to ensure the well-being of everyone who lives and works at our community. Together, we will get through this.

Q: What is being done to protect residents and staff?

A: We continue to implement rigorous virus sanitizing protocols daily.  The county health department continues to direct our actions. Residents’ temperatures are taken twice daily and the team is vigilantly monitoring all signs and symptoms for everyone who lives and works at Cappella of Pueblo West.

Q: Is Cappella of Pueblo West Safe?

A: The COVID-19 Pandemic is a world-wide health crisis. While no place at this time is immune to the virus, we continue extraordinary precautions with the guidance of local health officials and the CDC.

Q: What are the ‘rules’ your respective communities follow to detect, contain and isolate COVID-19?

A: The health and safety of our residents and team members is our top priority and we will continue to practice all federal, and local mandated measures as well as our organizational procedures to limit exposure of COVID-19 in our communities.

Q: Who is allowed to visit your communities?

A: The community is scheduling video calls and courtyard visits (patio visits, lawn visits) with social distancing and plexiglass for family visitors.

For all licensed neighborhoods – assisted living is on ‘restricted status.’ We are adhering to visitation guidelines established by the state health department, CDC and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Visitation to assisted living community is limited to:

• ‘Essential Need Only’ visits. Essential need visits include support care and family visits in resident mental health and end-of-life situations.
• Visits must be brief.

Q: How are visitors being screened?

A:  We screen everyone entering the building everyday immediately, including team members and essential care providers. Screening includes:

• Fever screening, we take temperatures of everyone, including team members
• Cough and/or shortness of breath
• Sore throat
• Any travel outside of country or state
• Identifying if they have visited another senior living community
• Questions on purpose of visit
• Once screening is complete, visitors must wash hands before visiting residents and after leaving the community

Q: What are residents doing to stay positive and connected

A: Maintaining a positive attitude is crucial. Positivity begets positivity. We encourage our team member to stay positive and imbue residents with positivity. We are also encouraging residents to:

• Continue to be social and actively engaged at safe social distances – for example hallway BINGO, hallway exercising and trivia
• Communicate with loved ones through texts, emails and social media. We’re encouraging community members to post photos on Facebook and tag everyone they want to see the photo
• We’re leveraging technology (FaceTime, Zoom, Skype, Facebook, Instagram, emails and text) to connect residents with loved ones outside the community and with each other. Examples include:
  • Virtual visits
  • Bible study
  • Playing and listening to music performances
  • Message board photos
  • Reading books to children via Skype
• For residents who don’t know how to use/unable to use technologies, families can sign up for a team member to assist their loved one to use virtual visit technologies.
• We’re encouraging folks to drop off a favorite pre-packaged food item or card. These will be wiped with EPA-approved disinfectant wipes before being delivered. We’re also encouraging:

• Writing notes to each other, to family and team members
• Enlist internal and external groups/committees – church, book clubs, knitters to do a card shower for residents and team members
• Continuing Pen Pals programs – letters and notes back and forth between students and residents
• Musical performances/poetry outside resident windows

Q: Can you describe your training protocols?

A: CLC/CLS already conducts extensive yearly training for all team members in managing infections and preventing the spread of infectious diseases. These protocols are multi-disciplinary and prescriptive to prevention, containment and how to stop the spread of the disease should it occur.

All communities are following a special set of coronavirus-specific policies and procedures modeled after our very successful flu and norovirus protocols. Training and protocols include:

• Provide training for all employees on infection control standards
• Report and act quickly if any symptoms are reported in the community
• Start isolation procedures immediately if COVID-19 is suspected
• Notify State and/or Local Health Department which coordinates with CDC to transport resident or team member to hospital for testing
• Follow state report guidelines for any confirmed cases

Q: What is done if a team member or resident shows symptoms?

A: If a team member has any symptoms, they are required to stay home and report symptoms to their doctor to determine if they meet COVID-19 test standards. If a resident exhibits symptoms, we are contacting the local health department and their doctor to determine the best plan for testing.

WATCH the last CLC-Cappella Town Hall from September 8th where leadership discusses next steps in the process and requirements to accommodate indoor visits in Colorado.

View a status update letter from Christian Living Communities-Cappella Living Solutions Interim CEO Camille Burke here:

June 17, 2020

Dear Residents, Team Members, Families, Supporters and Friends:

We have collectively traveled a long road together as our world navigates the COVID-19 pandemic. From efforts in early March of preparing, implementing, and ensuring communication of our undeterred commitment to the health and welfare of everyone who lives and works in our communities; to now, navigating our “new normal” of continuing virus mitigation and restrictions; we have made every decision with our mission in mind, of dignity, love, respect, and compassion for each individual.

The decisions that had to be made were difficult. Living within the required restrictions has been, at times, heart-breaking for everyone. Our continued commitment is to do all that we can for everyone’s health and well-being; this includes efforts to promote mental and emotional health.

For the last four weeks, our team has been working to balance health and happiness. An organizational leadership committee, which includes residents, has worked towards finding creative ways to adhere to required restriction yet allow for more personal connections and personal freedoms for older adults.

We are now entering another phase, where each community will determine how and when protocols and procedures will change for them based on their county and state directives. As we have all seen, across the nation, the decisions are shifting from federal directives to local control. That is the same for all 23 communities in our CLC-Cappella family. Our leadership will continue to guide and support all community teams in navigating the ever-changing government and oversight directives as well as resident and family desires.

The journey will continue as we know that the COVID-19 virus will be with all of us for some time. Every day we will work hard with residents, families, and associates in mind, asking what we can do and how we can do it better. We will not stop asking those questions, and we will not stop until this journey is done.

With sincere appreciation and everlasting hope,

Camille M. Burke
Interim Chief Executive Officer

Center for Disease Control and Prevention: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/index.html

State of Colorado: https://covid19.colorado.gov/

Pueblo County, CO: https://county.pueblo.org/public-health/covid-19