Cleaning and Disinfecting Your Facility: For cleaning and disinfecting best practices from the CDC, click here.

Workplace Vaccination Program: Making COVID-19 vaccination part of your workplace wellness program offers many benefits to you and your employees. To keep your workplace healthy, consider offering free, on-site COVID-19 vaccination at your business locations. To learn more from the CDC, click here.

Equally as important as taking care of your patients, you also need to take the proper precautions for you and your staff. For updated CDC infection control recommendations as of February 10, 2021, please click here. The CDC is again your best resource for this type of information. However, please find a quick guide below:

• Consider cross-training staff for all essential practice and clinical functions.
• Prepare for Staff Illness, absences and/or need to quarantine. Practices should plan for an increased absenteeism rate. You may want to consider establishing a relationship with temporary staffing agencies to help fill unexpected absences.
• Define appropriate and optimal use of limited Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), review the proper technique with staff for putting on and taking off PPE, and actively monitor PPE supply.
  1. For appropriate and optimal use, find guidance here.
  2. For proper technique, find guidance here (you may wish to print this out and post it throughout the practice for your staff).
  3. For help securing PPE for your practice, consult the Maryland Manufacturing Network website here.
     • Important Information About Your Cloth Face Coverings
• Physician wellness continues to be a top concern for practices during the COVID-19 pandemic. Listed below are three wellness webinars hosted by the American Medical Association (AMA) that cover various physician wellness topics.
  • Caring for health care workers during a crisis
  • Physician stress during times of COVID
  • How to implement a peer support program during a crisis
• Employees from the Center for Disease Control share the reasons why they wear a mask in this short video, "I Wear a Mask Because..." 
  
• For a summary on guidance from the CDC on how to protect office staff from exposure to COVID-19, please click here.
• Virginia Announces An Emergency Temporary Standard on Workplace Safety - July 15, 2020 
  • To view a summary of the Virginia Department of Labor and Industry's alert concerning new workplace safety requirements in Virginia, click here.
    
• Families First Coronavirus Response Act – recently, the United States federal government enacted the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (The Act). The Act requires employers with fewer than 500 employees to provide paid leave to employees who are impacted by COVID-19 and will offer tax credits to employers that do so. The law will take effect on April 1, 2020. For more information, go to:
  1. Fact sheet for employers
  2. Fact sheet for employees 
  3. Families First Coronavirus Response Act: Questions and Answers

• CARES Act Provider Relief Fund – The President and Congress recently enacted legislation to support healthcare providers fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. On March 27, 2020 the President signed the bipartisan CARES Act that provides $100 billion in relief funds to hospitals and other healthcare providers on the front lines of the coronavirus response. This funding will be used to support healthcare-related expenses or lost revenue attributed to COVID-19.
  • For more information on whether you and your practice qualify for relief funds, please consult HHS’s website here.

For a free collection of articles by The New England Journal of Medicine on how organizations across the world have responded to the pandemic, click here.

Don’t throw the customer experience and service side out the window. During this period of uncertainty, the need for compassion and understanding has never been more important. Don’t forget the human side for both your patients and staff.

Since this is a time of stress for many, please use these resources to find ways to cope:

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Stress and Coping
• American College of Lifestyle Medicine: Lifestyle Choices to Boost Immunity

Since many Physicians are working from home and using their personal computers, learn ways to ensure your work environment is safe from cyber-threats here.

COVID-19 Updates and Resources:

 Professionals Advocate Updates | Policy Coverage Issues | Legislative, Regulatory, Judicial Issues

Frequently Asked Questions | Reopening Your Office | Telemedicine | Protecting Your Patients | Risk Management