Aberdeen Village surveillance testing identifies a case of COVID-19

Aberdeen Village has discovered a non-direct care employee is positive for COVID-19 after starting regular surveillance testing of employees at the community.

The individual last worked Sept. 7 and passed the pre-shift employee screening. This case of COVID-19 was detected during Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) mandated surveillance testing of our employees. Surveillance testing requires all employees, agency employees, volunteers, hospice, lab and therapy providers at our campus to be tested on a frequency determined by our county’s COVID-19 testing positivity rate. Based on our county positivity rate for COVID-19 tests, our campus is testing employees once a week.

“The health and safety of our residents and employees is our top priority. Surveillance testing is another tool in the fight against COVID-19,” said Jeanne Gerstenkorn, PMMA’s infection preventionist and vice president for health and wellness.

Aberdeen Village conducted contact tracing and determined this employee did not have contact with any residents and was not in direct contact with any other employees. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines direct contact as being within 6 feet of a person for 10 minutes or longer.

The Johnson County Health Department and Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) Epidemiology Hotline have been notified, along with all other required federal and state agencies. The Johnson County Health Department does not recommend additional testing. Aberdeen Village will continue to conduct surveillance testing as required by CMS. The campus’ next testing date will be Sept. 15.

Families, residents and employees have been notified regarding the positive employee.

Aberdeen Village will follow CDC and KDHE guidelines for when an employee may return to work. Under the current guidelines, symptomatic employees may return to work when at least 72 hours have passed since resolution of the employee’s fever without the use of fever-reducing medications and the employee’s symptoms have improved and at least 10 days have passed since symptoms first appeared. Asymptomatic positive employees will quarantine for 14 days. Upon the employee’s return to work, we will follow CDC recommendations related to work practices and restrictions.

Aberdeen Village implemented a strict no visitor policy at the community and discontinued group activities and communal dining for the entire campus per guidelines released by CMS and the CDC on March 13.

All employees are encouraged to follow CDC guidelines and best practices as these are continually updated. We have been screening employees as they enter the community building for a shift and before employees have any direct contact with residents. We educate all staff to stay at home if they are experiencing symptoms of a respiratory illness or not feeling well.

For more information about Aberdeen Village’s response, go to PMMA’s (Presbyterian Manors of Mid-America’s) website, presbyterianmanors.org/media-room.

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