The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Released Emergency Guidance for Healthcare Facilities to Prepare for Potential Omicron Surge
CDC has published Interim Guidance for Managing Healthcare Personnel with SARS-CoV-2 Infection or Exposure to SARS-CoV-2 and has updated its guidance describing Strategies to Mitigate Healthcare Personnel Staffing Shortages.
DHS encourages hospital and health system leaders to review this guidance and actively develop contingency and crisis strategies in preparation for a likely increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations and the possibility of more infections among healthcare workers in the coming weeks. This message should be shared widely with health care partners, providers, and staff.
Key points from the revised guidance include:
- Healthcare workers who have received all recommended COVID-19 vaccine doses, including a booster, do not need to quarantine at home following high-risk exposures.
- Healthcare workers with COVID-19 who are asymptomatic can return to work after 7 days with a negative test, and the isolation time can be cut further if there are staffing shortages.
- Maintaining appropriate staffing in healthcare facilities is essential to providing a safe work environment for HCP and for safe patient care.
- Maximizing interventions to protect HCP, patients, and visitors are critical at all times, including when considering strategies to address staffing shortages.
- CDC’s mitigation strategies offer a continuum of options for addressing staffing shortages. Contingency, followed by crisis capacity, strategies augment conventional strategies and are meant to be considered and implemented sequentially (i.e., implementing contingency strategies before crisis strategies).
A framework for conventional, contingency and crisis standards for work restrictions for healthcare workers with SARS-Cov-2 infection or exposures is available here.
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