NJPPSG and McAnespey Podiatry Center Recommendations for Clinic during COVID-19 Pandemic
- Upon entering the office each day, each team member: assistant, and Doctor should have their temperature taken and logged on log in sheets.
- Patients and staff should wear face masks for the duration of the time that they remain in the office. Patients can use their own masks upon entering the office.
- On clinics websites, please include COVID-19 procedures for patients coming into office. Patients are to bring their own pens, facial coverings, adhere to CDC screening guidelines ex: staying home for sickness, fevers, for contact with possible COVID-19 cases.
- Patients prescreened by office staff when setting up visits with usual CDC guidelines. Telemedicine should be used when appropriate.
- Schedule patients with enough time between visits to allow proper social distancing in your office.
- When calling the patients, the day before their appointments, please ascertain if the patients have symptoms before their visit.
- Limit patient’s visitors to one relative/ caretaker for limited mobility patients.
- Allow patients to wait in their cars until check in is available. Front desk can call patients in their car to be let in one at a time.
- Decrease the number of chairs in the waiting room or tape off extra chairs for 6-foot seating areas to allow for social distancing. Please remove all extra reading materials, toys, products, and signage from the waiting room.
- Provide protective shield barrier between patients and front desk staff.
- Patients are to use hand sanitizer before interacting with front desk staff.
- Hand sanitizer used when clinic staff enters patient rooms and upon leaving.
- Once in exam rooms, patients should have their temperatures taken as well as their usual vitals, review of medication lists, and chief complaint.
- Staff should keep their masks in a zip lock plastic bag for daily use (unless worm out or visibly soiled0 and avoid touching the outer surface as much as possible. In high risk situation, such as surgical procedures, it would be advisable for providers to place an additional surgical mask oner the outside of the mask to prevent viral contamination. The only times that it should be acceptable to remove one’s mask is for eating and drinking. Consideration for one-way traffic flow design should be employed within each clinic.
- Restrict patient access to patient bathroom by locking room and providing the key at the front desk Office staff to monitor patient bathrooms and to clean after each patient. If possible, provide separate bathrooms for staff and patients.
- Obviously cleaning and sanitizing of rooms surfaces and usage of sanitizers for the air quality in each room should be used after the patient leaves. Review of pertinent web pages for lists of COVID-19 appropriate which changes rapidly.
- If office staff is leaving for lunch during shift, a change of scrubs or taking off a outer covering should be used in between shifts as well.
- When closing the clinic for the day, the sterilization of equipment, sanitizing rooms, and sweeping and mopping of floors should be performed daily .