At the time of writing this article, America is facing a pandemic as we have never seen before. COVID-19 has been responsible for over 400,000 deaths in the United States alone. Many administrators and nursing professionals in the assisted living realm had never imagined Infection Control would take the constant and never-ending attention of our minds to eliminate the spread of this serious virus. If you adhere to the following regulation you will be sure to avoid potential issues with not just COVID-19, but many other infectious diseases:
RULE 553.41 Standards for Type A and Type B Assisted Living Facilities
(n) Infection control.
(1) Each facility must establish and maintain an infection control policy and procedure designated to provide a safe, sanitary, and comfortable environment and to help prevent the development and transmission of disease and infection.
(2) The facility must comply with departmental rules regarding special waste in 25 TAC §§1.131 – 1.137.
(3) The name of any resident of a facility with a reportable disease as specified in 25 TAC §§97.1 – 97.13 (relating to Control of Communicable Diseases) must be reported immediately to the city health officer, county health officer, or health unit director having jurisdiction, and appropriate infection control procedures must be implemented as directed by the local health authority.
(4) The facility must have written policies for the control of communicable disease in employees and residents, which includes tuberculosis (TB) screening and provision of a safe and sanitary environment for residents and employees.
(A) If employees contract a communicable disease that is transmissible to residents through food handling or direct resident care, the employee must be excluded from providing these services as long as a period of communicability is present.
(B) The facility must maintain evidence of compliance with local and/or state health codes or ordinances regarding employee and resident health status.
(C) The facility must screen all employees for TB within two weeks of employment and annually, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) screening guidelines. All persons who provide services under an outside resource contract must, upon request of the facility, provide evidence of compliance with this requirement.
(D) All residents should be screened upon admission and after exposure to TB, in accordance with the attending physician’s recommendations and CDC guidelines.
(5) Personnel must handle, store, process, and transport linens so as to prevent the spread of infection.
(6) Universal precautions must be used in the care of all residents.
(o) Access to residents. The facility must allow an employee of DADS or an employee of a local authority into the facility as necessary to provide services to a resident.
(p) Restraints. All restraints for purposes of behavioral management, staff convenience, or resident discipline are prohibited. Seclusion is prohibited.
(1) As provided in §92.125(a)(3) of this chapter (relating to Resident’s Bill of Rights and Provider Bill of Rights), a facility may use physical or chemical restraints only:
(A) if the use is authorized in writing by a physician and specifies:
(i) the circumstances under which a restraint may be used; and
(ii) the duration for which the restraint may be used; or
(B) if the use is necessary in an emergency to protect the resident or others from injury.
(2) A behavioral emergency is a situation in which severely aggressive, destructive, violent, or self-injurious behavior exhibited by a resident:
(A) poses a substantial risk of imminent probable death of, or substantial bodily harm to, the resident or others;
(B) has not abated in response to attempted preventive de-escalators or redirection techniques;
(C) could not reasonably have been anticipated; and
(D) is not addressed in the resident’s service plan.
(3) Except in a behavioral emergency, restraint must be administered only by qualified medical personnel.
(4) A restraint must not be administered under any circumstance if it:
(A) obstructs the resident’s airway, including a procedure that places anything in, on, or over the resident’s mouth or nose;
(B) impairs the resident’s breathing by putting pressure on the resident’s torso;
(C) interferes with the resident’s ability to communicate; or
(D) places the resident in a prone or supine position.
(5) If a facility uses a restraint hold in a circumstance described in paragraph (2) of this subsection, the facility must use an acceptable restraint hold.
(A) An acceptable restraint hold is a hold in which the individual’s limbs are held close to the body to limit or prevent movement and that does not violate the provisions of paragraph (4) of this subsection.
(B) After the use of restraint, the facility must:
(i) with the resident’s consent, make an appointment with the resident’s physician no later than the end of the first working day after the use of restraint and document in the resident’s record that the appointment was made; or
(ii) if the resident refuses to see the physician, document the refusal in the resident’s record.
(C) As soon as possible but no later than 24 hours after the use of restraint, the facility must notify one of the following persons, if there is such a person, that the resident has been restrained:
(i) the resident’s legally authorized representative; or
(ii) an individual actively involved in the resident’s care, unless the release of this information would violate other law.
(D) If, under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the facility is a “covered entity,” as defined in 45 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) §160.103, any notification provided under subparagraph (C)(ii) of this paragraph must be to a person to whom the facility is allowed to release information under 45 CFR §164.510.
(6) In order to decrease the frequency of the use of restraint, facility staff must be aware of and adhere to the findings of the resident assessment required in subsection (c) of this section for each resident.
(7) A facility may adopt policies that allow less use of restraint than allowed by the rules of this chapter.
(8) A facility must not discharge or otherwise retaliate against:
(A) an employee, resident, or another person because the employee, resident, or other person files a complaint, presents a grievance, or otherwise provides in good faith information relating to the misuse of restraint or seclusion at the facility; or
(B) a resident because someone on behalf of the resident files a complaint, presents a grievance, or otherwise provides in good faith information relating to the misuse of restraint or seclusion at the facility.
(q) Accreditation status. If a license holder uses an on-site accreditation survey by an accreditation commission instead of a licensing survey by DADS, as provided in §92.11(c)(2) and §92.15(j) of this chapter (relating to Criteria for Licensing, and Renewal Procedures and Qualifications), the license holder must provide written notification to DADS within five working days after the license holder receives a notice of change in accreditation status from the accreditation commission. The license holder must include a copy of the notice of change with its written notification to DADS.
(r) Vaccine-Preventable Diseases.
(1) Effective September 1, 2012, a facility must develop and implement a policy to protect a resident from vaccine-preventable diseases in accordance with Texas Health and Safety Code, Chapter 224.
(2) The policy must:
(A) require an employee or a contractor providing direct care to a resident to receive vaccines for the vaccine-preventable diseases specified by the facility based on the level of risk the employee or contractor presents to residents by the employee’s or contractor’s routine and direct exposure to residents;
(B) specify the vaccines an employee or contractor is required to receive in accordance with paragraph (1) of this subsection;
(C) include procedures for the facility to verify that an employee or contractor has complied with the policy;
(D) include procedures for the facility to exempt an employee or contractor from the required vaccines for the medical conditions identified as contraindications or precautions by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention;
(E) for an employee or contractor who is exempt from the required vaccines, include procedures the employee or contractor must follow to protect residents from exposure to diseases, such as the use of protective equipment, such as gloves and masks, based on the level of risk the employee or contractor presents to residents by the employee’s or contractor’s routine and direct exposure to residents;
(F) prohibit discrimination or retaliatory action against an employee or contractor who is exempt from the required vaccines for the medical conditions identified as contraindications or precautions by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, except that required use of protective medical equipment, such as gloves and masks, may not be considered retaliatory action;
(G) require the facility to maintain a written or electronic record of each employee’s or contractor’s compliance with or exemption from the policy;
(H) include disciplinary actions the facility may take against an employee or contractor who fails to comply with the policy.
(3) The policy may:
(A) include procedures for an employee or contractor to be exempt from the required vaccines based on reasons of conscience, including religious beliefs; and
(B) prohibit an employee or contractor who is exempt from the required vaccines from having contact with residents during a public health disaster, as defined in Texas Health and Safety Code, §81.003 (relating to Communicable Diseases).
(s) A DADS employee must not retaliate against an assisted living facility, an employee of an assisted living facility, or a person in control of an assisted living facility for:
(1) complaining about the conduct of a DADS employee;
(2) disagreeing with a DADS employee about the existence of a violation of this chapter or a rule adopted under this chapter; or
(3) asserting a right under state or federal law.
Top Takeaways:
- (3) The name of any resident of a facility with a reportable disease as specified in 25 TAC §§97.1 – 97.13 (relating to Control of Communicable Diseases) must be reported immediately to the city health officer, county health officer, or health unit director having jurisdiction, and appropriate infection control procedures must be implemented as directed by the local health authority.
If you did not have a grasp on this reg prior to handling COVID-19, then you most certainly know the drill now. You must report these diseases for the safety of your residents, staff, and the general public!
- (C) The facility must screen all employees for TB within two weeks of employment and annually, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) screening guidelines. All persons who provide services under an outside resource contract must, upon request of the facility, provide evidence of compliance with this requirement.
Easily one of the most common tags that facility operators see is the failure to keep track of the TB screening process for current and new employees. Make sure you or your designee have a tickler system set up to track your staff’s initial and subsequent annual TB screenings.