A plan to reopen Florida’s nursing homes is taking shape

State task force offers suggestions to increase safety at facilities

A state task force met Friday to re-imagine what visiting your relatives in a Florida nursing home might look like in the age of COVID-19. Among the suggestions: Facilities letting visitors in after they’ve gone infection-free for 28 days, holding visits outside and ensuring visitors wear masks.

Florida’s nursing homes and assisted-living facilities have been on a virtual lockdown since midMarch, the result of an executive order by the governor. No date was set for when visitation restrictions will be lifted, but government officials signaled they want to reopen with deliberate speed.

“There is absolutely a sense of urgency,” Mary Mayhew, secretary of the Agency for Health Care Administration, said Thursday of the panel’s work while talking to South Florida’s senior care providers with the Broward Coalition on Aging.

The task force, which includes industry representatives, cabinet secretaries and family advocates, suggests:

■ Facilities in areas with relatively low levels of coronavirus and that have not had an infection in the past 28 days may consider opening up their visitation policies. The task force did not define a threshold for a community with low levels of coronavirus.

■ Visitors will have to undergo a symptom screening, wear a mask and practice hand washing. The task force did not discuss requiring visitors to wear eye protection.

■ Visits will ideally occur either in outside patio areas, in special designated visitation rooms isolated from the rest of the facility that are regularly cleaned, or — as a last resort — in the individual quarters of room-bound residents.

■ The task force would focus on

opening the visitation process for family members, as well as loved ones who also provide care, before figuring out protocols for broader visitation.

Family advocate Mary Daniel took a job as a dishwasher in the facility that housed her husband in order to be closer to him after the virus broke out and the visitations were shut down. Daniel pressed Mayhew, who is also on the panel, about securing rapid, pointof-care coronavirus tests for nursing home visitors and employees.

“I don’t want to make this so complicated that we lose the laser beam focus on PPE, hand washing, and social distancing,” Mayhew replied.

Richard Prudom, secretary of the Florida Department of Elder Affairs, noted that the social isolation brought on by the visitor bans carries a high cost, leading to increased mental health issues and swifter cognitive declines among the lonely elderly.

“We need to balance physical health with the need for spiritual and mental well-being,” he said.

Currently, the only people allowed into the over 7,000 nursing homes, group homes, and assisted-living facilities around the state of Florida are employees, medical professionals, and family members visiting those who are dying or who have suffered a traumatic event.

Some facilities allow family members who provide care to visit, but not all do.

In addition to barring visitors, the state also has deployed significant testing resources to aid the vulnerable, captive population. Right now, nursing home employees and medical staff are being regularly tested for the coronavirus once every two weeks.

But that hasn’t kept the virus from trickling into facilities and wreaking havoc.

At least 3,886 deaths have occurred among residents and staff of nursing homes and long-term care facilities due to COVID-19 as of Friday. That figure accounts for 42% of the state total for coronavirus deaths of residents.

Miami-Dade County has the highest number of longterm care facility deaths, with 643, or 17.5% of the total. Palm Beach County has had 404 deaths, or 10%, and Broward accounted for 270 deaths, or 7%.

While talking with the Broward Coalition on Aging on Thursday, Mayhew said she was confident “we can arrive at a framework that will allow for visitation and will be thoughtful and safe.”

When asked about the timeline from the owner of an assisted-living facility, Mayhew said she wants to move forward as quickly as possible.

The next meeting of the state level task force, called the Task Force on the Safe and Limited Re-Opening of Long-Term Care Facilities, is set for next Tuesday.