March 31, 2020
To Our Residents, resident families and team members:
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread throughout the country, I wanted to reach out and send an update on the additional precautionary measures we have put in place at all Anthology Senior Living communities.
With an abundance of caution, we are now instituting in-room quarantines of all residents until further notice. As a reminder, we had previously implemented safety protocols at our communities that go beyond the CDC recommendations such as banning non-essential visitors, temperature screening all team members, essential visitors, and residents, limiting movement throughout the building, implementing increased social distancing measures, and enacting thoughtful PTO policies for team members at the community level to protect them financially should they exhibit any COVID-19 symptoms. In addition to the in-room quarantine rolled out to ensure social distancing of the residents, we have also taken steps to take care of our team members including: increasing the wage of all community team members – titled Hero Pay - and implementing morale building events to ensure our team members are motivated to come to work. Further, we have made larger purchases of Personal Protective Equipment (“PPE”) to ensure each community has ample reserves, plus filled out central inventory should we need to send extra supplies to certain communities with short notice. PPE is difficult to source, but due to our large order sizes we have been able to procure this critical material. PPE keeps both our residents and team members safe while together. We are taking a holistic view of keeping both our residents and team members safe and comfortable during this evolving situation. Effective March 27, 2020, we have also suspended new admissions into our communities for a 14-day period.
We understand that this is a stressful time for you and your loved ones and that social isolation and feelings of loneliness are a large concern for everyone. I am very pleased to announce we are rolling out a Social Distanced Engagement Program to all Anthology communities to ensure our residents are active during in-room quarantine. The plan covers a full 14-day period and includes distinct activities focused on the mind, body and spirit each day. This program includes distribution of distance supply kits containing arts and crafts supplies, puzzles, light exercise equipment such as resistance bands and community resident phone directories – one mind, body and spirit activity will be delivered along with residents’ meals each day throughout the in-room quarantine period.
We will also continue to implement technology-based engagement activities such as movie streaming services, distance learning resources via Open Learning and DuoLingo, virtual museum tours and continued virtual instructions on FaceTime and Skype. We encourage you to keep reaching out to your loved ones via phone, e-mail and video call – hearing from you will be more meaningful now than ever.
We will continue to update residents, families and team members as new information becomes available. We will also post updates on both our website at www.anthologyseniorliving.com and via email. Should you have additional questions do not hesitate to reach out to the community Executive Director or email our corporate team at information@anthologyseniorliving.com
Our sincerest thanks go out to each and every one of our team members who continue to deliver high quality care and service to our residents. We would also like to thank our residents and family members for entrusting their loved ones in our care. We remain highly focused to ensuring the safety of our communities and continue to do everything in our power to ensure the health and wellbeing of our team members, residents and residents’ families.
Sincerely,
Benjamin Burke
President, Anthology Senior Living