Skip to content
March 29, 2024

FAQ #41:  November 27, 2020 – Containing Answers from November 24th    

November 27, 2020

Answers to Staff Questions on  Employee Health and Safety, Supplies and PPE, and HR Policies 

   The following FAQs were adapted from questions submitted by VNSNY staff for the CEO      Conference Calls hosted by  Marki  Flannery  on  Tuesday,  November 24th.     

Supplies, Masks and PPE 

Q. We have been instructed in the past to don PPE before entering the patient’s home. We are now late in the fall soon to enter the winter months and donning PPE outdoors will become impossible due to winter temperatures. Are we putting ourselves at increased risk of exposure to COVID by donning PPE after having entered the patient’s home? I guess I have to put my winter jacket in a separate garbage bag due to contact precautions? 

A. Tony Dawson, Vice President of Quality and Customer Experience: A couple of things. So the first thing is that we would want you to be wearing your mask and your face shield when you enter the patient’s home. We are supplying larger plastic bags for you to be able to put your personal belongings in especially when it’s colder outside. And then put your PPE oneither your gown and/or your glovesimmediately when you enter the home. But again if you’re wearing your mask and you’re wearing your face shield that’s the most important protection that you have to wear in the first place. And then put on your gown and your gloves once you enter the home, immediately inside the patient’s home. 

Again we just have to do this at each apartment as much as you can. And I understand and we realize the difficulty that it poses especially if it’s wet weather or it’s cold and you’re wearing winter clothing. So we are providing you with an additional bag to be able to store your personal clothing when you go into the patient’s home.  

Q. Since the coronavirus could be transmitted by asymptomatic patients or household members, should field staff healthcare workers wear an N95 during the visit at all times? If not, what would be the rationale?  

A. Tony Dawson: Again please follow the protocols that were asking you to do, start with making sure that you’re doing the screening calls before you go to the patient’s home to ascertain if they have a possibility of having COVID. And the minimum requirement is still a face shield and/or goggles and a mask. And you should be protected with that especially for our patients who are non-COVID positive. 

For patients who are COVID positive, we require you to wear the N95 mask. And again please follow the protocols that we have outlined especially as we start to see an uptick in the number of cases again. But again the most important thing for you to be wearing is your face shield and your mask at all times when you see your patients 

Q. While the current protocols in place are helpful and have been effective despite going through the screening, I have discovered that caregivers are sometimes less than honest about symptoms and current risk exposure. Given that there is asymptomatic spread, field clinicians and staff should be allowed to wear an N95 for each visit and prevent unnecessary risk to staff.  

A. Tony Dawson: So we understand your concern again but we’re asking you please to follow the protocols. We’ve been following those protocols with relatively safety over the last nine months. We please ask you to follow those because while we do have PPE and while we do have N95 masks available we don’t have endless supplies of those, and we are trying to stratify the PPE according to the patient risk.  

So I’m not telling you not to wear an N95 but I’m asking us to please follow the protocols according to the patients. And if you feel that the patient is high risk or the patient is not being truthful with you or the family isn’t being truthful with you then by all means wear your N95.  

But again please follow the protocols. We design those based on the patient’s risk and to protect you and protect our staff moving forward.  

HR Policies / Pay and PTO Policies 

Q. How do Home Health Aides schedule to set up compliance training? 

A. Jim Rolla, SVP, Partners in Care: We are going to be delivering the Annual Compliance Training for the HHAs through an online platform that the aides can access through CareConnect. In the event they do not have the app, it may be accessed through a link they will receive via text. It’s very important that HHAs have a working cell number on file with Partners in Care so they can receive the link to access the courses. We hope to send this in a couple of weeks. 

Q. There is evidence that COVID-19 will be with us for the winter and possibly beyond. Please let us know the status of previous requests for transportation stipends to Manhattan clinicians while we are using our personal vehicles for work purposes. 

A. Marian Haas, Chief Human Resources Officer: Staff who choose to use their own vehicles instead of using public transportation may submit for reimbursement based on mileage.  Any tolls and approved parking expense is also reimbursable. Monthly travel stipend (“car hire”) is payable only to staff required to use their own vehicles for this purpose.  

Patient  Care and  Clinical      

Q. Will we be able to continue with the Department of Transportation parking pass after December 31?  

A. I know that this is something that is very much a desired request of our staff. And we are continuing to work with the city to get these parking passes extended. They seem to always wait until the last moment to give us the final answer. So there’s no surprise that we still don’t have an answer as to whether or not the parking passes will be extended after December 31. We hope so but it’s entirely up to the city to make that determination. And we will continue to keep you posted on the response to that.  

Q. Staff COC nurses are constantly being asked to contact physicians for starts of care done by weekend nurses. This is very time-consuming. Why can’t office nurses make these calls? 

A. Andria Castellanos, Chief of Provider Services: I think that we can take this suggestion to the leadership team to see if this is something that makes sense and can be implemented. We do understand how frustrating this is for the COC nurses. So I will send this recommendation to the CHHA Leadership Team and asked them to get back to this person who sent it. 

Q. When I worked a night on call and the manager could not assign a case to me, she asked me to write a paper note. Are there still paper notes to be inputted with this new system VNSNY currently uses? 

A. I don’t truly understand the question. Andria do you understand the question so that you can reply to this? 

Andria Castellanos: I think I understand the question. I’m not sure I know the answer. So this person is being asked to write a paper note instead of inputting it into I’m assuming home care home base.  

Marki Flannery:Yes this is a CHHA nurse. 

Andria Castellanos: Yes, because the case hasn’t been assigned the nurse can’t access it and that’s probably what’s going on. So the question is, is the paper note being inputted into the system? And I’m sure there’s a process for that. I will send it to the team so they can follow up with this person to ensure that that paper note is being translated into the system itself so we’ll follow-up with this person. 

Q. We have been noticing that nurses on call on weekends are given visits that are non-emergencies and start STC. RNs are activated unnecessarily. Can the evening, night and weekend supervisors appropriately triage the cases and possibly do virtual calls or visits before assigning staff? 

A. Andria is this a follow-up?  

Andria Castellanos: Yes, I think this is a follow-up Marki regarding the nurses who are on call on the weekend. So I again understand the question and it’ll be a direct follow-up with the person that asked the question. 

Employee Health and Safety    

Q. Are we required to take a COVID test? If so where is it offered and when will it be offered? 

A. The only staff that are required to get a COVID test are staff who are working at nursing homes or assisted living facilities as part of their daily work. They are required to get a COVID test.  

Additionally, any staff who travel need to follow the travel advisory and would be required to get a COVID test so that they do not have to quarantine. If staff choose to not get a COVID test, then their quarantine would be mandated, and they’d have to use PTO to do so. We encourage staff to get COVID tests and they are being done on a volunteer basis. So you would make arrangements to go to get your COVID test 

And we are offering the rapid COVID test at our 41st Street entrance right behind our 220 building, at the Partners in Care location. We have staff on site Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 7:30 am to 6:30 pm administering the rapid COVID test.  Additionally, on Thursdays and Fridays at our Queens location from 7:30 am to 6:30 pm we are offering the rapid COVID test. But please note this week because it’s Thanksgiving we are not offering the test on Thursday. Please see the schedule on the COVID site for more information. 

We are looking to expand the locations and we’ll post all of the information about those locations on the intranet so that you can see that. But if you wanted to get a COVID test at your convenience during those working hours you can come in and get a test. 

Q. For staff with Samsung tablets completing the daily COVID health assessment is very quick. But the many logins and phone authentication creating the request in Workday takes three to four minutes each morning. Is there any way to shorten this? 

A. I know that I do the daily health assessment each morning. I do it on my cell phone and it is very quick. You have to navigate there, but once you get used to doing it, it does not take me three to four minutes. It is just a minute or two from when I login to when I complete, so not sure what the difference is between what I have to do or what others have to do, but we will follow-up on that.  

Marian Haas: We are testing access on Samsung tablets to determine why you are experiencing this delay in signing in.  We will share our findings soon. 

Administrative   

Q. How are partners home health aides who do not have access to digital communication being updated with information sent in that manner? For instance, some don’t even know about Ben’s support calls. 

A. Michael Bernstein, Chief Experience Officer: I understand the question is about access to digital communication. But so that everybody knows, if you do have access to the Web as a home health aide you can go to frontline VNSNY and then you click on Partners in Care. Anyone can access that from any place on the Web. And today for example if you were there it says Tuesday, November 24 at noon is the support call so the information is there.  

But of course the question says if you don’t have access to digital communication. And with respect to that we would have to confer with Partners in Care leadership. Perhaps Andria knows, but there have been in the past other ways in which information is shared with home health aides.  

 Marki Flannery: Yes, I know that we’ve mailed information. We’ve done broadcast messages and we’ve also called aides, but we can followup. So Andria perhaps you can followup with Jim Rolla and we could answer that individual with additional information.