Viewpoints: Visitation in Long-Term Care Facilities During COVID

Visitation in Long-Term Care Facilities During COVID: Improving Well-Being, Reducing COVID-19 Spread

A perspective from Emma Dries & Nathan Boucher

The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services recently allowed indoor visitation at long-term care facilities in our state. This order came in the wake of North Carolina’s entrance into Phase 3. The guidelines for visitation have been strict, only applying to facilities whose counties have a percentage of coronavirus tests that are less than 10% and facilities that have not had a single COVID-19 case in the previous 14 days.

The coronavirus has hit residential care & nursing homes incredibly hard – 5 facilities in Orange County were affected, resulting in 75 COVID-19 positive cases and 4 resident deaths. These cases do not just affect residents but the lives of nursing home staff – in North Carolina more than 1,300 workers have tested positive and four have died.

Visitation is a vital resident right. While physical separation of visitors and residents is the most effective way to reduce the spread of the virus, visitation provides critical emotional support and allows visitors to help hold facilities accountable for resident safety and quality of care. North Carolina’s current standard for visitation is a reasonable first step in in-person visitation between residents and family members. By ensuring all visitors wear PPE, are temperature-checked, physically distance, and visitation schedules are staggered, the risk of a facility-wide outbreak can be mitigated.

In the case a facility is not eligible for in-person visitation, access to virtual visitation tools and techniques is a crucial resource in psychosocial well-being. Safely shared technology and communicative devices like cellphones, tablets, and webcams to safely facilitate virtual visitation is necessary. Sanitized devices, learning resources about these technological tools, and low-cost, creative methods for maintaining contact should be encouraged across all nursing facility management and ownership.

While the limitation of contact between individuals is the most effective way to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, separation can take a significant physical and emotional toll on residents. While not all facilities will have the opportunity to provide in-person visitation, virtual support must be safely accessible to address the mental health of residents during this difficult time. Indeed, all facilities should be poised to respond with virtual tech should COVID resurge in areas currently experiencing a lull.

Dries is a public policy student at Duke University and Boucher is a federal research scientist (Veterans Administration) and faculty at Duke University Sanford School of Public Policy.

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