UPDATE: Employee at The Kenney tests positive for COVID-19

| Coronavirus | The Kenney | West Seattle news

The parent company of The Kenney has announced an employee has tested positive for COVID-19. Here’s what we received:

Heritage President and CEO Lisa Haglund confirmed today that The Kenney, a Heritage senior living community in West Seattle, has a staff member who has tested positive for the COVID-19 virus in their senior living community.

Haglund stated, “The staff member who tested positive is currently in quarantine, and will not return to work at The Kenney until further notice. All of our families have been notified. Out of an abundance of caution, all residents in Lincoln Vista at The Kenney will be quarantined for the next 14 days. All outside visits with families are cancelled during this time of quarantine. In accordance with HIPAA requirements, no further details will be released.”

Haglund shared, “At Heritage, the health and safety of both our residents and staff is of the utmost importance, and we are taking action to reduce the risk of exposure for all. The steps we are implementing are directly tied to the recommendations and guidelines of the CDC, and state, local, and federal regulations, and we will adjust these steps if those recommendations change. To date, we consider ourselves lucky to have limited our exposure as a result of the pro-active efforts of our staff working in conjunction with our COVID-19 task force.

Heritage has taken multiple steps to help prevent exposure for residents including restricting all visitors, daily employee and resident health screenings in accordance with CDC guidelines, and no group activities.

She continued, “Our COVID-19 task force has been preparing for this possibility, and we believe our incredible team of caregivers is well trained and ready to support our residents.”

ADDED 11:43 AM SATURDAY: In a followup exchange, Heritage offered to have Chief Clinical Officer Jeremy Rutter talk with us by phone this morning. Here’s what else we learned:

-This is actually the third positive test associated with The Kenney. A resident recently tested positive after becoming ill and being admitted to a hospital; before that, a staff member had tested positive in a test administered by their personal health-care provider. This new result is the first one from testing done by medical staff at The Kenney.

-Rutter says they’ve done three recent rounds of testing among residents and staff, and will be re-testing everyone “in about a week.”

-Because of the new case, all staff are wearing “head to toe” PPE, masks, eye shields, bonnets, gloves, gowns, booties.

They’re also working with Public Health Seattle-King County, he said, to be sure they’re doing everything they can to protect residents and staff.

Steeeeeve July 17, 2020 (11:55 pm)

So sad. No containing it now. Once discovered it’s already too late.

JJ July 18, 2020 (6:21 am)

It sounds like they have an outbreak in progress. Aggressive testing and isolation is exactly what they need to contain it. Unfortunately, our care facilities were not designed to control airborne pathogens, only hospitals have negative pressure rooms, but not nearly enough. They have a real challenge on their hands, and will need to get creative to save as many people as possible. From the comments it sounds like they are not the only major facility dealing with containment right now. Hopefully our DOH is helping them. Hopefully they have enough staff for dedication to patient groups. I will be praying for them.

Bad News July 18, 2020 (7:13 am)

This is not what one wants to read. I hope it didn’t spread to anyone else.

DD July 18, 2020 (7:59 am)

That’s not necessarily true. If the staff member was following protocols and masked and gloved, etc., they may not have transmitted this to other staff or residents. (Recent example of hair salon where two employees ended up positive, but none of the 100+ clients they had served did. All had been masked.) Certainly hope this will be the case at the Kenny. But we all do need to assume that anyone we encounter on any given day may be carrying the virus, unknown to them. That’s why wearing a mask, keeping our distance, following up on contact with hand washing and surface cleaning, limiting exposure to settings that confine us and/or have multiple people around is going to be key to trying to reverse the current trend and keep as many of us as safe as possible.

Beetle July 18, 2020 (10:54 am)

I have family at The Kenney and they have handled this virus exceptionally well. They communicate with residents and family every time there is a change of any kind. I don’t believe there is an outbreak at this time, just one case. I still feel that my family members are in a very safe environment. Their staff is wonderful.

WSB July 18, 2020 (11:37 am)

When I asked a followup question after receiving this announcement Friday evening, they offered to have the parent company’s Chief Clinical Officer call me this morning – I just spoke with him and am adding more information to the story.

Beetle July 18, 2020 (12:47 pm)

I did not know about the resident case, but I did know about the first staff case, that was awhile ago. The Kenney has Independent Living, Assisted Living, and Memory Care areas. When I referred to this ‘one case’ I meant this is the first one to happen in the area where my family member lives.

SD July 18, 2020 (6:07 pm)

My concern is whether some staff members go from one area to the next. For instance, are the people delivering meals to assisted living also delivering meals to independent living and memory care? What about the maintenance crew? I do believe The Kenney has done a good job so far in protecting their residents but I’d like to know if the staff members who tested positive worked in different buildings? I have a family member who lives there and I haven’t heard anything about the two previous cases.

Sorry, comment time is over.