Here at the Circle of Care, we offer a variety of nursing services. One of the most popular services we offer is long-term care. Long-term care involves various services designed to meet a person’s health or personal care needs during a short or long period of time. These services help people live as independently and safely as possible when they can no longer perform everyday activities independently.
The most common type of long-term care is personal care, which requires help with everyday activities, also called “activities of daily living.” These activities include bathing, dressing, grooming, using the toilet, eating, and moving around. Long-term care also includes community services such as meals, activities, and transportation services.
The Circle of Care has a fantastic nursing department team that collaborates our resident’s care needs with an Interdisciplinary Team and the friends and family of our residents to ensure all their needs are being met, including physical, mental, and psychosocial.
Infection Preventionists- Why do nursing homes need them?
The Infection Preventionist is responsible for the facility’s Infection Prevention and Control Program. The facility must provide a safe and sanitary surrounding and prevent communicable diseases and infections from developing and spreading. An Infection Preventionist maintains an Antibiotic Stewardship Program and consults and collaborates with prescribing physicians, pharmacists, referring hospitals, nursing staff, and provides education to the residents and their families regarding improving antibiotic prescribing. Antibiotic prescribing is enhanced by optimizing antibiotic selection, obtaining diagnostic testing to ensure the correct antibiotic is being prescribed, and using the shortest effective duration of antibiotic therapy. This prevents adverse effects and antibiotic resistance, which is a severe threat to the resident’s health.
Protecting our residents starts with entrance to our facility with mandatory screening for COVID-19 signs and symptoms and obtaining everyone’s temperature; once that is done, hand sanitizer is used upon entering and leaving the facility. Hand hygiene continues to be the number one prevention in the spread of infection. Daily cleaning of high-touch surfaces with approved EPA cleaner decreases the risk of infection. We use our R-Zero Arc System, a powerful hospital-grade UV-C light disinfection system to sanitize common rooms and other high-touch areas. The use of face masks continues as a form of source control in the prevention of COVID-19. We continue to follow guidelines for COVID 19 testing of staff and residents, which allow us to quickly identify an infection and immediately follow infection prevention and control guidelines to mitigate the spread of infection. These daily precautions have kept our residents safe as we haven’t had a Covid-19 positive resident in the past 11 months, and we have not had a resident case of influenza in the past four years. We recently held influenza and COVID Booster clinics for staff and residents. Because of our successes, we can continue to have safe visitations for our residents with their loved ones, and the residents can enjoy group activities and outings. Infection control continues to be ever-changing and more crucial than ever.