Arkansas City PMMA announces two residents positive for COVID-19
Arkansas City Presbyterian Manor announces that two memory care residents have tested positive for COVID-19.
“We continue to prioritize resident and employee health and safety,” said Sarah Griggs, executive director of Arkansas City Presbyterian Manor.
On Friday, September 18, we tested 199 individuals. 112 of those were staff and 87 were residents. Of those tested, 194 are negative, two are positive, and three are still pending. We will send an additional communication if any additional positive cases are detected.
We have conducted contact tracing and have notified the Cowley County Health Department and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) Epidemiology Hotline. We will conduct another round of testing this week.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has mandated surveillance testing of staff. Surveillance testing requires all employees, agency employees, volunteers, hospice, lab and therapy providers at our campus to be tested on a frequency determined by our county’s COVID-19 testing positivity rate. Based on our county positivity rate for COVID-19 tests, our campus is testing staff once a week.
The residents who tested positive are in isolation and being care for by a COVID-19 Rapid Response Team. We will follow CDC and KDHE guidelines for when the residents may come out of isolation. Under the current guidelines, symptomatic residents may come out of isolation when at least 72 hours have passed since resolution of the resident’s fever without the use of fever-reducing medications and the resident’s symptoms have improved and at least 10 days have passed since symptoms first appeared. If asymptomatic, the residents will remain in isolation for 14 days. Rapid Response Team members are following doctor’s orders for treatment protocols and following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) infection prevention protocols.
All team members are encouraged to follow CDC guidelines and best practices as these are continually updated. The community regularly reinforces with all staff that an individual should not report to work if he or she is experiencing symptoms of a respiratory illness or not feeling well.
For more information about Arkansas City Presbyterian Manor’s response, go to PMMA’s (Presbyterian Manors of Mid-America’s) website, presbyterianmanors.org/media-room.
