Sierra Tucson has maintained its position as a vital and committed partner in the substance abuse and mental health treatment community throughout the COVID-19 crisis. Many steps have sequentially been taken over these past several months, as this pandemic has evolved beginning with: intake screening in January of 2020, progressing to daily temperature and symptom screening of our patient community and staff, social distancing, testing as needed, and quarantine and isolation when appropriate. These steps, along with following guidance from the Centers for Disease Control, the Arizona Department of Health, the Arizona Governor’s Office, and maintaining seamless communication with our local health departments has allowed Sierra Tucson to maintain exceptional safety, while remaining open and impactful for our patients and those who care about them during this challenging time.
With a surge in Arizona COVID-19 cases, Governor Doug Ducey and local leaders have now mandated every Arizonan to wear facial coverings, while in public for our collective health and safety. Sierra Tucson staff have all utilized facial coverings for several weeks and residents have previously been asked to strongly consider facial coverings in groups. Sierra Tucson announced that beginning July 15, 2020 all persons on the Sierra Tucson campus will be required to wear facial coverings when in group settings. By requiring facial coverings for all of our community, we believe we will continue to provide a safe healing environment for each of our residents and the community we are so grateful to serve.
As you know, there is no pause button for mental health concerns, not even during a pandemic. Our goal as healthcare providers is taking care of our patients who need treatment and support during this stressful and uncertain time. Now more than ever, it is critical to work collaboratively ensuring that people who need our help know they can still turn to us for healing. Some of the measures we have taken at Sierra Tucson to ensure patient and staff well-being include:
- Formed a COVID-19 task force, composed of medical providers and infection prevention nurses.
- Daily COVID-19 meetings for organization response planning and monitoring.
- Implemented hand hygiene protocols in accordance with guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
- Maintaining the highest level of infection control and sanitization.
- Limiting business-related travel to essential trips only, requiring CEO authorization.
- Monitoring all coronavirus developments, news and recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Arizona Department of Public Health, Arizona Department of Health Services, World Health Organization (WHO) and the Joint Commission (JC) to ensure that Sierra Tucson follows current best-practices to keep our patients and staff healthy and safe.
- Emergency preparedness policies updated for pandemic response.
- Ongoing communication with our local health officials and acute health care facilities for up to date community-specific guidance and medical care recommendations.
- Communication and public health notification processes in place if a case of COVID-19 is identified.
- Enhanced illness and infection screenings for all staff entering the premises.
- Suspended visitation to reduce exposure, protecting patient and staff health
- Pre-admission travel, exposure and symptom screening for all new patients who are entering our facility.
- Heightened awareness surrounding pre-existing medical conditions and high-risk individuals.
- Daily temperature and symptom screening for current patients.
- Social distancing measures education for patients and staff to reduce the spread of infectious diseases, such as limited pool hours and smaller groups for adequate social distancing.
- Gym facilities remain closed as per state guidelines.
- Development of tele-capabilities for outpatient and family programs.
- Increase in number of groups, lectures and activities to allow for reduction of group size to ten.
- Active monitoring of our medication supply chain.
- Tracking supplies of personal protective equipment.
- Monitoring travel alerts across the country in order to support our patients getting to the next step of their care.
Should a patient or staff member present with fever and/or respiratory symptoms, we will continue to follow our CDC-compliant assessment and treatment protocol to maintain the safety of our patients and staff. At Sierra Tucson, we are taking this pandemic very seriously, and all of our efforts are designed to ensure that COVID-19 does not prevent our partnership from continuing to help those in need of treatment. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact our Admissions team at 800-842-4487.