March 18, 2020
MEMO TO: All HealthPRO Heritage Professionals
FROM: John Heller, Chief Executive Officer
RE: Encouragement & Guidance for Our Staff
As we all look to understand and respond to the growing complications related to COVID-19, it can become a challenge to balance our daily lives, concerns for family and friends and the responsibilities of our jobs.
Please know that HealthPRO Heritage remains steadfast in our commitment to our employees and those we serve on a daily basis. Just as you continue to care for those in the communities we support, our dedicated leadership team is working tirelessly to provide education, training and resources to assist you. Specifically, a COVID-19 task force has been formed to address the real-time challenges that this pandemic is causing. This group confers daily to stay up-to-date on this ever-changing environment, to distill the information and to disseminate it to our staff and partners. It remains critical that you, too, stay up-to-date by monitoring guidance from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO), state and local health departments and government groups such as CMS. Only by working together, maintaining open lines of communication and following evidence-based infection control protocols are we going to stem the tide of spreading.
Our partners and patients have placed their trust in you, and we need to remain intensely committed to their well-being. With that said, you can help by making careful decisions regarding social outings, vigilantly screening yourself and those in your home for symptoms and communicating with your team if you are – or suspect you are – unwell.
In the meantime, I want to personally thank you for your continued, professional dedication to providing essential Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy and Speech Language services to the patients, residents and children we serve. By delivering physician-ordered and medically necessary services, you are playing a key role in the fight to contain and beat COVID-19. Improving the functional status of patients in skilled nursing sites allows them to safely transition home or a residential community, freeing up much needed capacity as hospitals look to discharge patients sooner and with more medically complex needs. Similarly, delivering wellness, fall prevention and other essential services in assisted and independent living communities allows those residents to avoid hospitalizations and remain in their communities. Professionals in our Home Health and Pediatric Divisions also continue to provide critical services to adults and children with needs.
We thank you all for your commitment to your profession, the patients and partners you support and for the key role you are playing in the broader social effort to win this battle.
John Heller, Chief Executive Officer