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October 22: Providence’s Swedish hospitals in the South Puget Sound domain, which added Providence Centralia and Providence St. Peter, replace their COVID-19 policy with a self-diagnosis policy.
“Over the past two years, Swedish hospitals in Providence have learned how to manage COVID-19 and have physically powerful protocols in place for the protection of our patients and caregivers,” a Providence news release said.
As of October 24, hospital entrances will no longer be staffed. Upon admission to the hospital, visitors will verify that they recently have COVID-19 or related symptoms and have been exposed to the virus in the past 10 days.
If visitors are unable to meet those guidelines, they are asked to visit until symptoms have passed.
The hospital visiting policy will remain the same, restricting patients to two and requiring universal use of masks, hand hygiene and social distancing.
There will still be masks and hand sanitizing stations at the hospital entrances.
The move to self-testing for COVID-19 goes hand in hand with the rules established through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and still follows the rules of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
For more information, visit Providence’s COVID-19 blog in https://coronavirus. providence. org/.