The essential solutions needed to confidently and safely re-open your business in 5 proven steps.
While only 1% of the American population lives in long-term care facilities, as of January 14, 2021, this small fraction of the country accounts for 37% of COVID-19 deaths and 4.7% of all cases. Learn more about how you can protect your community by leveraging the Accushield Sign-in and Health Screening Kiosk.
As Senior Living and Nursing Homes look for ways to safely re-open and protect their employees, residents, visitors, and overall business operations from the threat of infection, it goes beyond just a thermometer -- a thermometer alone isn't enough to protect your community.
Since 2013, Accushield has been the innovative leader in staff, visitor, and third-party caregiver sign-in and health screening solutions. Thousands of Senior Living Communities and Nursing homes across the US and Canada trust Accushield for one simple reason: they put people and their health safety first.
What sets Accushield apart? For starters, the kiosk system was the first sign-in and screening kiosk specifically created for Senior Living Communities and Nursing Homes. Created by former operators with decades of experience in the Senior Living industry, the system is uniquely made to provide solutions to the specific problems facility operators face most frequently.
Protecting your staff, residents, and caregivers takes a holistic approach. Many states are now requiring pre-screening questionnaires to be completed, temperatures taken upon arrival, consent forms signed, and, moving forward, the ability to verify a person has either a negative COVID-19 test or the COVID-19 vaccine.
With administrators and operators working around the clock to protect their facilities from outside threats, a simplified, all-in-one solution allows them to focus more on their residents and less on the administrative burden of a manual sign-in/screening/validation process.
With eight years of experience working to protect Senior Living Communities and Nursing Homes, we’ve come up with the five steps necessary to shield your community and protect what matters most (before, during, and after the global pandemic).
Touchless process for sign-in and sign-out of staff, visitors, and third-party caregivers.
It's critical to know who is in your building at all times. Our seniors are our most vulnerable population, and without screening visitors on their way in, these residents are left at risk for potential harm. A system that allows you to sign in and verify a person's identity, why they are there and if they have submitted any required credentials, is critical when protecting your residents and employees.
Customizable Health Screening
All facilities should be implementing a screening that includes CDC or other recommended COVID-19 questions for all staff members and visitors who enter their buildings. In fact, in many states, it's a requirement. You may also have additional information you need to collect, such as Waivers or other Acknowledgments. We recommend a solution that allows you to customize the questionnaire in a way that most effectively assists with your business operations.
Touchless Temperature Screening
Temperature screening is a recognized best practice, but is not easy to reliably and efficiently capture and store for reporting purposes. Beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, facilities should be screening all guests to ensure they are not currently carrying another illness (such as the flu) that can rapidly spread in a long-term care setting. Fever is the #1 indicator of illness, and it's imperative we continue to monitor for fever to keep our residents and staff as healthy as possible. Creating a culture of wellness goes beyond keeping residents safe, as healthy employees directly impact a business's bottom line. However, not all thermometers are created equal.
The best way to safely and effectively take a person's temperature without it costing your organization both time and money comes in the form of a touchless thermometer. Contact and handheld thermometers create more opportunities to spread infections and burn administrative time by manually administering the screening. A kiosk with a thermometer included does all of the work for you: no employee is required to administer the screening, and no one has to touch anything.
Temperature scanning alone is only one component of the larger, more comprehensive employee and visitor screening process. The Accushield kiosk (shown below) utilizes screening best practices from over 3500 senior living communities and combines them into one simple, effective solution
Informed Consent
While the COVID-19 pandemic may have led businesses to start including an informed consent form in their sign-in process, we believe there's more to protecting your community than just COVID-19 consent. Communities need the ability to have all visitors, and third-party caregivers agree to company-specific policies and safety protocols in order to truly protect their employees and residents. Whether it's a COVID-19 consent agreement, the ability to schedule and monitor visits at sign-in, or otherwise capture required legal documentation, your sign-in process must include a way to quickly and easily gather this information and be able to track and report it.
COVID-19/Health Documentation Validation
As testing has become more readily available and the COVID-19 vaccine has started to be administered, operators need to verify that a person has either had the vaccine or recently tested negative to come into the community.
Health-Verified Name Badge Printing
While it may sound simple, simplicity doesn’t prevent impact. When it comes to keeping your community secure and your employees at ease, requiring all visitors and third-party caregivers to wear a name badge shows all with whom they come in contact that they have passed your community’s requirements. What's more, it enforces safety measures by verifying who has the approval to be in your building after they have completed the sign-in background check and screening questionnaire. We hear all-too-often of the tragic cases where outside parties take advantage of our most vulnerable population group, our seniors. This helps mitigate the risk and exposure of external threats through a streamlined sign-in and verification process.
These aren't just best practices for re-opening during the COVID-19 pandemic… they are proven methods to continually keep your residents, staff, and visitors safe. At Accushield, our holistic approach eliminates manual tasks and administrative burden, using best-in-class technology, which allows you to focus on what matters most: caring for your residents and protecting your business from external threats.
Join the thousands of Senior Living Communities and Nursing Homes across the US and Canada that use the Accushield kiosk to sign-in and temperature screen every staff member, visitor, vendor, and patient who enters and exits their facility.
The content from this blog is courtesy of Lever Stewart, CEO - Accushield. Predict, Prevent, Protect. To learn more about Accushield and UKG Partnership, visit their marketplace page.
