News

Life is full here at New Haven Assisted Living & Dementia Care. Each of our senior care communities maintains a busy schedule of social activities, special events, and wellness programs that bring our residents together into a tight-knit community. Above all, we believe in having fun as one big family!

Check out what’s happening in our communities or make plans to join us for one of our upcoming events. (Be sure to follow us on Facebook if you’d like to keep up with the latest news.)

New Haven Assisted Living & Dementia Care continues to excel in providing COVID-19 vaccines and testing

Austin Texas, March 15, 2021 – New Haven Texas, 10 assisted living and dementia care communities located throughout Texas, continues to look forward to long-term protection with providing COVID-19 vaccines and frequent testing for residents, staff, and essential caregivers effective March 8, 2021.

New Haven Assisted Living is providing COVID-19 vaccines and testing. New Haven has partnered with a well-known Texas laboratory to provide supported testing services. Through this partnership, New Haven will receive support with COVID-19 testing including training, access to test kits, lab capacity and management of results via an online portal. All residents and essential caregivers will be tested once a month, and staff tested twice a month. This test will be a non-invasive nasal swab collected in the community by the Wellness Director, LVN. The swab is then mailed directly to the lab, where results will be obtained within 24 to 48 hours. Implementing testing and contact tracing to slow the spread of COVID-19 allows New Haven to quickly identify infections and provide residents, staff, and families with peace of mind.

“Being one of the first senior living communities to offer over 25 COVID vaccine clinics throughout our 10 Texas locations, we are excited to offer free COVID-19 testing so New Haven residents and staff can rest easily knowing they are living in the VERY safest place, said Tessa Wilson, Director of Operations at New Haven “I remain confident that the COVID-19 vaccines and testing will transform the healthcare industry so New Haven can continue to provide a safe place for our current and future residents.”

With the recent executive order issued by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, which went into effect March 10, 2021 relating to the opening of Texas business in response to the COVID-19 disaster, New Haven will continue following guidance from the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) regarding visitations, and infection control policies and practices.

New Haven continues to excel in all 10 of their communities by identifying different ways to keep current and future residents safe from exposure to COVID-19. The New Haven team understands families still have concerns about placing their loved one in senior living, and their ongoing commitment is to provide high-quality care in an environment that is safe for seniors. Stay up to date on our COVID guidelines https://newhavenassistedliving.com/ or visit our Facebook page for more details https://www.facebook.com/newhavenassistedlivingandmemorycare

About New Haven Assisted Living & Dementia Care – New Haven Assisted Living & Dementia Care is a luxury assisted living and dementia care residence with 10 locations across Texas. New Haven invites residents to enjoy days filled with relaxation and ease of living, along with the finest in accommodations and senior care in a boutique-style setting.

Under Reconstruction: Schertz Assisted Living & San Angelo

New Haven takes immediate action during Winter Storm Crisis

Updates for COVID-19

Is assisted living safe during COVID-19?

August 7th Update

As many of you are aware, Govt. Abbott released an update on 8/6/2020 in regard to opening up our facilities. I want to share a few of the specifics that I do know as of today 8/7/2020 as many of you have reached out with questions. The Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) announced limited visitation rules for Assisted Living Facilities. We will be required to enhance emergency rules requiring additional action to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 as this continues to be a rapidly evolving situation and are constantly assessing what actions are necessary to keep our residents and staff safe in our facilities. Our goal is the reunite our residents with their families and friends.

As we know the access to family and loved ones is an important part of every resident’s health and well-being we also recognize the need to balance the emotional and physical health impacts of isolation against serious dangers that COVID poses to our vulnerable residents.

Although visitors are not allowed in at this time, I will be working diligently over the next several days to prepare for visitation. There are several items I need to have in place per HHSC that are required in advance to assure our residents, families and staff remain safe. My hope is that by mid next week you will all be able to see your loved one at some point.

For the health and safety of our facility residents and staff, public visitation will be limited to outdoor visits only. Physical contact between residents and visitors will not permitted. Additional conditions we will be required to conduct during outdoor visitation include:

No confirmed positive COVID-19 case in staff in the last 14 days.
No active positive case in residents.
Adequate infection control procedures.
Facility staff MAY be required to test weekly.
6ft social distancing between resident and family member.
Resident and family member must wear mask at all times.

Further information will be sent out next week as I receive information additional information from HHSC.

I want to thank all of you for your patience, love and support during this unforeseen pandemic. It will be a joyous day for us all to allow our families to return and especially the day you all get to wrap your arms around yours and our precious residents.

If you have further questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to your Administrator or myself.

Tessa Wilson

Director of Clinical Care and Operations

tessa@newhavenassistedliving.com

New Haven of Spring and Tomball Receive a Special Visit

Getting Creative for Family Visits

Keeping Our Seniors Engaged

New Haven understands how important it is to not only keep our residents safe during this time of uncertainty, but as well as keeping our seniors engaged. We are staying socially engaged with each of our residents daily. Our Life Enrichment teams are working around the clock to ensure our residents do not feel socially isolated and have implemented one on one activity sessions with the residents in order to prevent loneliness and boredom. The lack of visitors and the need for social distancing has changed, but New Haven continues to keep our residents engaged daily. Here are some ways we are keeping our seniors engaged and staying connected and active throughout this time.

Staying Virtually Connected

Each of our New Haven communities have received new iPads to help our residents to continually stay connected with their families and friends. Our Life Enrichment Coordinator goes around individually and spends time with each resident to assist them in connecting with their family and friends.

Staying Distantly Social

New Haven has started a new program to be able to connect with other communities and younger generations in the surrounding

areas by creating a Pen Pal Program. Seniors can often experience a new enthusiasm by living through a younger generation’s perspective. In addition, the children and seniors can both continue to develop their writing and communication skills sharpened. In these letters, everyone is able to share old memories and create new friendships!

We are also offering many social activities within the community that allows our residents connect but continue to keep their safe distance:

Ice Cream Socials
Hallway Bowling
Coffee and Conversations
Walking Club
Rhythm Circle
Spiritual Reading

Hot Towel Service

In addition to washing hands in the sink, we provide hand massages with a hot towel with essential oils before each meal. Not only does this help with calming but it also helps with an additional precaution. Aromatherapy has been known as a complimentary therapy that uses essential oils to improve a person’s well-being. The aromas help the residents to feel rejuvenated and energized.

Helping Hands

Our residents love getting to help out and staying busy throughout the day, and New Haven’s goal is to continually keep our residents as independent as possible. With Spring right around the corner, we have our gardening club going and are actively planting fresh flowers. There are many positive aspects of gardening for our seniors:

Physical Engagement
Mental Engagement
Sense of Accomplishment

Although the COVID-19 might have slowed many people down socially and actively, New Haven committed to keeping our residents active and their health and well-being a priority. We will continue to go out of our way to ensure our residents are experiencing a normal day to day activities and as safe as possible.

Visit our Facebook to see more fun or schedule a tour to see how you can join the fun! Please let us know if you have any questions by emailing us at hello@newhaventexas.com.

MARCH 31st UPDATE

UPDATES FOR CORONAVIRUS-19

Our New Haven management team is taking every action to stay connected with our residents and families as we continue to navigate the personal implications of COVID-19 per CDC guidelines. The health and wellbeing of our resident’s, families and staff members are of utmost importance to us. Below is a plan we have put together to ensure that your loved ones are being protected from COVID-19.

Summary of Changes per Centers for Disease Control (CDC)

Restricted all visitation except for certain compassionate care, such as end of life situations.
Restricted all volunteers and non-essential healthcare personnel (HCP), including non-essential healthcare personnel.
Canceled all group activities outside of the community and communal dining.
Implemented active screening of residents and health care professionals for fever and respiratory symptoms.
Employees with a temperature of 100.0 or greater will be sent home.
Residents with a temp of 100.0 or greater will be quarantined to their room.

We are encouraging our physicians to use telemedicine to screen and treat our residents using technology networks to reduce the flow of non-core health care providers from entering into our facilities.

Healthcare providers such as Hospice and Home Health will have limited visits sufficient to allow the resident to stay on services. Hospice caregivers who provide baths for those residents will be allowed into the facility, but visits will be decreased. All outside healthcare providers will be required to complete the

COVID-19 symptom screening and will be required to use Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) upon entering the facility.

Watch for symptoms:

Reported illnesses have ranged from mild symptoms to severe illness and death for confirmed coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases.

The following symptoms may appear 2-14 days after exposure.^*

Fever
Cough
Shortness of breath

Relying on the expertise of the CDC and local health officials across the country, we are committed to sharing information as soon as we have it to protect the health and wellbeing of our residents, employees and families. At the heart of our core values is you, and the New Haven management team who serve you. We are here to support your needs and care for your loved one in every way possible.

We know this is a very difficult time for you as visits are restricted due to the CDC protocols and we will continue to go above and beyond to make every effort to allow you to visit with your loved one via Facetime or other sources of telecommunication. Our goal is to reduce the anxiety level of our residents due to the many changes and maintain our compassionate level of care.