Updated September 10, 2020
There’s no need to put off getting care, especially emergency care, when your health requires a visit to one of our medical centers. While we work to keep you safe in our facilities, you can expect your in-person experience to feel different than it did before the COVID-19 crisis. That’s because we’ve established even more rigorous procedures to disinfect our centers and prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Our expanded procedures include sanitizing all surfaces, from reception desks and waiting rooms to pharmacy, lab, and radiology spaces. Often-touched areas, such as door handles, elevator buttons, waiting room chairs, wheelchairs, handrails, trash bins, soap dispensers, and ledges are disinfected regularly. Here’s what else we’re doing to allow for social distancing and keep you and our staff safe in our medical centers:
- Updated our visitor policy – No visitors or additional family members are allowed at this time. Only patients under 18 or those who require physical assistance* may bring one adult with them. Patients are welcome to use their cell phone while with their doctor/provider to have a caregiver or other family member/friend participate in the appointment
- Require masks be worn at all times in our medical centers (this includes physicians, staff, patients and visitors ages 2 and up).
- Ask members who develop COVID-19 symptoms to call Member Services at 1-800-777-7904 (TTY 711) or use kp.org to complete a COVID e-visit or schedule a video visit before coming for an in-person visit.
- Have greeters at the entrances of our medical centers to welcome and prescreen everyone who enters. This will enable us to immediately care for those we believe may have COVID-19 before they encounter other patients in the center.
- Equip our physicians, nurses, and health care staff with the appropriate safety gear to protect themselves and members.
- Have placed hand sanitizing stations throughout each medical center. As always, our doctors, nurses, and other medical staff sanitize or wash their hands before and after interacting with patients.
- Continually clean and disinfect all surfaces to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
- Added signage and wayfinding arrows to help members, visitors, and employees adhere to physical distancing.
- Built physical barriers — Plexiglas bio-shields — when six feet of space between patients is not possible.
*Patients who may need assistance include those who have physical, sensory, intellectual, developmental disabilities and/or cognitive impairments.
Our premier hospitals also focus on your safety
Visit the following links to see what our premier hospitals1 are doing to keep their facilities clean and safe for you:
Maryland
Anne Arundel Medical Center / Doctor’s Community Hospital
Greater Baltimore Medical Center
Holy Cross Hospital / Holy Cross Germantown Hospital
Virginia
Washington, D.C.
Children’s National Health System / Medstar Washington Hospital Center
Remember—it’s important to get your care now
Even in times of a crisis like COVID-19, do not delay care that is critical to your long-term health. That means don’t hesitate to schedule a discussion with your doctor symptoms or to speak with your surgeon about the risk and benefits of postponing versus moving forward with treatment. You can have confidence and trust that Kaiser Permanente is doing everything we can to ensure your safety when you come to our facility. We put your health care first.
1The premier hospitals are independently owned and operated hospitals, and they contract with Kaiser Foundation Hospitals.
