May 18, 2020

Dear Legacy Health Services Team Member,

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact all aspects of our work and personal lives.  At Legacy Health Services, our staff has done an incredible job of minimizing and containing the risk to our residents, who are a very vulnerable population.  Your dedication to infection control protocols, masking and hand hygiene has absolutely saved lives within your facilities.

As a team, we have been working on a long-term plan to continue to provide safe and secure environments for our staff and residents.  As you may have heard from the Ohio Director of the Department of Medicaid, Maureen Corcoran, Ohio has created an option for nursing facilities to designate a dedicated space to treat COVID-19 positive individuals.

Our company has been approved to utilize the third floor of Legacy Place Parma as a dedicated space for the treatment of COVID-19 patients.  If we have any residents who test positive or are presumed positive for COVID-19 in any of our Legacy Health Services facilities, they will be transferred to this unit for their care and recuperation.

The ability to treat these residents in one spot has many benefits for the residents and staff.  The risk of viral spread at the home facility is reduced.  The ability to staff the unit appropriately and optimize personal protective equipment (PPE) utilization are also improved as all COVID-19 patients within Legacy Health Services would be in one facility instead of divided amongst ten facilities.  The operational logistics are designed to allow for a near immediate transfer should a resident test positive for COVID-19 in any of our facilities. With the modifications being made now, the physical layout of the third floor allows for dedicated entrance and exit points with space to sanitize before leaving the area, so the other areas of the facility are not at risk for cross-contamination.

Over the next few days and weeks, you will be hearing more about this unit and the services we are able to provide.  Please rest assured that staffing on this unit will be on a strictly volunteer basis.  Hourly wages offered will be higher than our standard rate because of the nature of the unit.  Full PPE will be provided for all staff on this unit, and options like staff shower space are available to help them protect their homes and families from exposure to the virus.  Once an employee has worked on this unit, he or she will not be floated back to another facility or floor within Pleasantview Care Center- it will be a completely dedicated staff so we do not risk exposing other areas or facilities to COVID-19 unnecessarily.

Together with your help, we have done our very best to protect the safety and wellbeing of our staff and residents as we continue through this pandemic.  This unit is the next step in that mission, and we are proud that we have the space and equipment to accommodate this model within Legacy Health Services.

If you have any questions about this unit or would like details on position availability, please contact Ann Birsa or Lynette Vazquez.

Thank you,

Gratefully,

Eliav Sharvit                                        James Taylor                                       Tammy Selvey

Chief Executive Officer                        Chief Operating Officer                        Chief Clinical Officer