COVID-19 | For Senior Living Facilities

While many home health agencies lacked the ability to quickly respond to COVID-19, AccentCare leveraged its national platform and capabilities to transform its clinical operations to meet the needs of patients in the environment brought forth by the pandemic.

A result of COVID-19, AccentCare quickly invested in new products, services, and technologies that will position AccentCare to safeguard our patients, and provide high-quality care both now and following the COVID-19 pandemic. Some examples of these new products, services, and technologies include the following:

• Established a COVID Response Team (CRT): During the peak of COVID, AccentCare’s  400+ caregiver CRT had the capacity to care for more than 3,000 COVID positive patients across the country, supported by a streamlined, centralized case review and acceptance process.  As we have moved to the next chapters of the pandemic, the key learnings gained from our CRT have been applied throughout our caregiver team.
• Launched CarePath Suite of Products:
  • COVID CarePath: AccentCare was one the first, and in many regions, the only home health care company that accepts COVID positive patients, anchored by the clinical COVID Response Team
  • Surgical CarePath: A multi-dimensional, specialty-specific suite of home-based care designed to substantially improve surgical outcome, while maximizing your pre-hab, re-habilitation, and post-surgical recovery away from dense public sites, such as hospital campuses.
  • Intensive CarePath: A Hospital-to-Home care service, for the patient with chronic diseases that require repeat hospital observations and sometimes admissions.  Like Surgical CarePath,  Intensive CarePath is designed to skip high-risk environments such as SNF’s and rehab hospitals
• Telemedicine and Telehealth: Expanded existing telemonitoring capacity for chronically ill patients, and newly launched the extremely successful Synzi virtual visit platform. Within the first month, over 1,500 virtual visits occurred across AccentCare
• Expanded behavior health to support isolation depression and those patients who need support as they approach the resumption of their health care journey.

While no one could predict COVID-19 and we are uncertain how long it will remain, strong organizations like AccentCare have positioned themselves to lead our communities through the remainder of this pandemic, all while continuing to provide exceptional outcomes and excellent patient experience to those we serve. In crisis, or in calm, our organizations successfully distance ourselves from the pack, never losing sight of our call to purpose, our missions, and our patients

As a leader in Senior Living, you know how unprecedented the last year and a half has been.   Slowing the spread of COVID-19 (coronavirus) requires we all work together, following the guidance of the CDC and our state public health leaders.
While no one could predict the rapid emergence of this pandemic, we started our internal preparations in January or 2020 and have continued to improve them in 2021 and will do so beyond.   Some of the plans that we activated in the late Winter of 2020 include:  engaged.

AccentCare is prepared to responsibly protect your patients and residents by:

• We are vigilantly following CDC’s communication and guidance
• Extensive training according to role and job
• • No matter the role, all AccentCare employees are required to complete training based on the CDC’s coronavirus fact sheets.
  • Caregivers, field personnel, and those that are involved with the facilitation of care are required to complete job-specific training including proper use of PPE.
• We have incorporated screening questions in our intake and patient encounters. Those screenings are hardwired into Homecare Homebase, our medical record.
• We have repeatedly communicated the utmost importance of hygiene.
• We are tracking our own employees’ exposure and risk, and taking steps to limit their interactions when necessary.
• We have an aggressive vaccine program, facilitated by our Chief Medical Officer, and supported by a vaccine resource team.

What do you need to do differently? Our processes are hardwired to intake new patients with a coronavirus screening. Nothing will change for you. We have hardwired all of our processes, and have very successfully cared for thousands of who make their home in a senior living facility.

How we can work together:

• Even though our intake process includes a pre-visit call, if you are aware of any community policy changes that may impact our ability to deliver health care to a resident, we welcome that communication as soon as possible.
• We are vigilant about the use and utilization of PPE for the safety of your residents, as well as our caregivers.
  • Please allow us to follow CDC guidelines according to the situation at hand.
  • We will always take the time to clarify our compliance if you have a question.
• Visit accentcare.com for the most current information about our COVID-19 response. Just look for “Coronavirus Info” on the top navigation bar of our home page.

If you determine that restricting access to outsiders is in the best interest of your clients, we will, of course, honor that. We would, however, like your help in maintaining clinical contact with our patients. Whether that be in acceptable face-to-face access or use other means such as telehealth to administer care. Your regular AccentCare representative can help you with this.

Commitment to Safety:

AccentCare has no recorded patient-to-caregiver or caregiver-to-patient transmission though at least the ? rst from the activation of the COVID Emergency Response Team.

Thank you for trusting AccentCare with your community. We are honored to work alongside you, as we face the coronavirus challenge together, as a unified team.