Our Resident Services team has created a group email to better meet your needs! This is intended to make it easier for residents to get ahold of a team member regarding any personal situations, questions and/or concerns. The email will be listed below, we look forward to further assisting you!
Resident Services Team
[email protected]
It’s an old slogan, and a new product: TOUCHTOWN. Paper will not be going away but as a campus we continually work towards different ways to communicate with all of you. We feel touchtown is a great way to work towards reducing paper usage and a great way to keep everyone engaged and in the know! Resident touchtown ambassadors have been hard at work crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s in regards to the toucthtown app and developing a training class on the best way to utilize touchtown.
Ambassadors will be at the “touchtown help desk” every day from 11:00a-1:00p in the Bistro helping others download the app on your phone in preparation for trainings. Ambassadors will also be holding in person touchtown trainings on 9.10, 9.11, 9.12, and 9.13, you will need to sign up to attend those trainings but…..you can also do that at the “touchtown help desk”! Stop by during the help desk hours and sign up for a class, we hope all can come and visit!
Becky, I know that I speak for your sales team and the entire campus when I say that it has been absolutely great working with you—your work truly made a lasting impact, and one that has changed the campus for the better in so many ways. I have always appreciated how you were readily available to lend an ear when complex considerations arose on the path to residency and help solve any problem and that you have done so with grace, humor and caring.
We are happy to do all we can to meet your transportation needs. However, Beatitudes Campus is not responsible for any damage incurred to residents’ personal property during transit. It is the responsibility of the resident to keep any fragile or valuable items safely secured either on their person or left behind for safe travel. Residents that use walkers, scooters or power chairs need to have them cleared out of personal belongings and ready to be properly stowed by staff. Please only take the necessary items that you require. Note that items like baskets and cup holders are always vulnerable to breakage no matter who is transporting them for which Beatitudes cannot take responsibility. As always, we do our best to care for you and your possessions.
Just a quick reminder to residents and staff to not leave food out for the cats who share our Campus. When we leave piles of food out in the Courtyards (beloved CPN courtyard, are you listening?) it attracts birds, looks a little trashy, and causes a mess, which no one wants. We like to keep our Community Cats under the radar so they do not become a nuisance. There are at least four “official” places on Campus where they can get food and water. Some of you already assist with “official” feeding stations and that is appreciated. Anyone else who wants to assist can reach out to me for details at x16117. Otherwise, you can see from the picture that no one is going hungry around here. Thank you for your kind hearts, and for your understanding of the delicate balance required in managing this furry ecosystem.
We continue testing all staff weekly and unvaccinated staff twice a week. So far, since the beginning of the pandemic, we have administered over 16,000 tests for COVID-19. That’s a lot of nose-swabbing! This week, we have three Independent Living staff who tested positive for COVID-19 and are still in quarantine. We have no residents who have notified us that they are positive. Gratefully, all the staff and residents who have tested positive during this latest surge of COVID-19 infections have or are recovering.
Beatitudes Campus was created out of care and compassion and today our actions are proof of this fact. You are giving a beautiful gift in recognizing the health vulnerabilities, visible or not, that put your neighbors at risk. You are saving lives and preventing suffering through the simple act of wearing a mask today. Thank you for this.
Since last Friday’s letter, two fully vaccinated Patio Home residents (living together) have tested positive for COVID-19 and one fully vaccinated staff (support staff in the Health Care Center) has tested positive, bringing our total active cases this week to six people, (3 residents and 3 staff) with two people recovered.
Dear Beatitudes Community,
In our continued pledge of transparency, I am reaching out to you today to let you know that we have had two fully vaccinated people – one is a part-time staff member and one is a contracted nurse practitioner – test positive for COVID-19. They both had mild symptoms. We have done contact tracing with the residents with whom they had interaction, and, with our increased monitoring, no residents have shown symptoms.
The Delta variant is 60% more transmissible than the original strain of the coronavirus. We do know that there have been reported breakthrough infections among fully vaccinated people. The good news is that the virus in most cases is mild and hospitalization and death among the fully vaccinated people are extremely low. Health experts do say that being vaccinated is the best defense against the Delta variant.
Arizona, with its vaccination rate below 50%, ranks seventh in the nation with the most cases of COVID-19. The state’s seven-day average for new cases is the highest since mid-March and more than double the average from two weeks ago. The Delta variant is the dominant strain in Arizona. With the continued transmission of the virus, it will continue to replicate and create a higher risk that it could mutate into an even more deadly variant.
The good news is that 98% of our residents are vaccinated and 73% of are staff are vaccinated. That’s quite an accomplishment! During this past month, we have held 52 “vaccine conversations” with staff to help separate myths from science.
So please, if you aren’t vaccinated, consider getting your vaccine so that we can end this pandemic once and for all.
Stay safe.
My best,
Michelle Just, President and CEO
The Welcome Center staff would like to announce some changes when it comes to mailing packages and our new postage meter. The USPS has changed the way the meter figures the postage on packages. Unlike our last machine it only went by weight; however, our new one is both weight and size. With that, we would like to encourage the use of flat rate shipping boxes (small, medium, and large) as they can be cheaper than using regular boxes and to help bypass the input of dimensions making the process quicker. We are happy to provide any size box we have available without charge aside for the postage.
As a reminder, the USPS has announced increased postage rates starting August 29th.
Now is the time every gardener in the Beatitudes Community Garden waits for. Vegetables and fruits are ripening and need picking and distribution.
We need pickers from each of the Campus buildings. It means going to the Garden every other day with a basket and picking ripe vegetables. And bringing them back to the lobby of your residence building. If you need help identifying such veggies, a phone call to experienced gardeners listed below will help you. You will also find guides to picking posted in the Garden.
If you are interested, please call Mike Gilman x17438 or Melissa Frey x18115. We will be happy to meet with you for an orientation.
Melissa and Mike
We are showing that we are Beatitudes Strong because our campus currently is COVID-19 free. As the spread continues to decrease in Maricopa County and here on campus, we have been able to decrease the frequency of staff testing per our regulating agencies. We no longer will be doing twice a week testing for staff working in Plaza View or the Health Care Center.
Dear Beatitudes Community,
Beatitudes Campus is in Week 3 of our phased-in re-opening. I can’t tell you what joy it brings our residents and staff to regain social connections and have a life full of ordinary moments – coffee with a neighbor, a game of bridge, a long walk around campus. After a year of disruption, the very ordinary moments have become extraordinary. For Independent Living residents, the re-opening guidelines for the coming week are the same as the past week. We have done well and protected each other during the current phase. We will be expanding our re-openings at the end of this month, so watch for details. Of course, we require mask wearing in all areas (except for resident apartments) and ask that you stay physically distant from others who are not part of your group.
For our licensed areas, re-openings are regulated by state and county health departments. For our assisted living areas (Plaza View and Early Memory Support), we have received guidance for a controlled re-opening. Residents may leave their buildings and walk outside and enter certain buildings throughout campus. Communal dining in Plaza View and in the Bistro are now available if reservations are made; meal deliveries will still be available. Up to two visitors, seven days a week can visit residents in assisted living, indoors or outdoors. It is with such joy that I saw an assisted living resident ready to start his daily walk – with a bottle of water and a granola bar in hand, he could feel the fresh air and feel the warmth of the sun. For our health care center, we are able to have indoor and outdoor visitation for our residents in Sierra Springs (3rd floor), but for Vermilion Cliffs (4th floor), our advanced memory support area, we are in outbreak status until March 26, as a direct care worker tested positive for COVID-19 a week ago. This means that the residents cannot have visitors, except for compassionate care.
Visitor Guidelines can be found on our website (https://beatitudescampus.org/beatitudes-family/) and clicking on Visitor Guidelines. Independent Living Guidelines can also be found in the Roadrunner (current issues are posted on our website (https://beatitudescampus.org/beatitudes-family/) and clicking on Information for Residents). If you have any questions, you can email us at [email protected].
We continue to follow our staff testing regimen and this week, again, all tests are negative for COVID-19 (we administered a total of 394 tests this week). We do feel that testing is an important step in stopping/slowing the spread of the coronavirus. Right now, we have one direct care worker in the Health Care Center who tested positive for COVID-19 last Friday and is quarantining at home.
We are so grateful that our residents and staff have had the opportunity for getting the vaccine, either at the campus clinics or at the county and state PODS. Next week, March 23, is our last vaccination clinic at the campus with CVS. This clinic is primarily for residents/staff who received their first dose of the vaccine last month (February 23). If, however, you have been unable to get your first dose of the vaccine yet, you may use this clinic to get your first dose! The staff at the clinic will help you schedule an appointment for your second vaccine, which will be off-campus.
I want to thank all of you for your strength and leadership in adhering to public health guidelines and recommendations. We would not have gotten this far at the campus without your support. Please stay well!
My best,
Michelle Just, President and CEO
This week marks the first anniversary of the declaration that the United States was in a public health emergency with the coronavirus.
After Wednesday, March 10th, Assisted Living/Early Memory Support residents will be able to start walking outside on campus. On Tuesday, March 9, we will be reopening our amenities for Independent Living residents – Backstreet Boutique, Gift Shop and the Salons. During two staff and resident testing sessions, we received all negative results! We will continue testing staff in the near future, as testing is key in mitigating the spread of the virus. We have no new cases of COVID-19 on campus as of March 5th.
Feb. 19th – We have some good news about vaccine rates here at the campus. Nearly all residents in Skilled Nursing and Assisted Living have been vaccinated. (Those in Skilled Nursing received their second dose last month and those in Assisted Living will receive their second dose next week.) Our Independent Living residents have a vaccination rate of 85%. We are still compiling the statistics for the rate of vaccination among staff. I want to thank all who chose to be vaccinated. Fighting this pandemic is a team effort. We are protecting ourselves, our co-workers, residents, families and our community.
Residents will recall filling out an annual satisfaction survey in years past. This annual questionnaire is typically developed by Holleran, an organization that surveys Life Plan Communities like ours throughout the nation. This year, Beatitudes Campus has developed its own Independent Living resident survey tailored to the unique experiences of our community during the pandemic.
We continue to do our mass COVID-19 testing of our staff across campus. On Monday, we conducted 277 tests and none were positive for COVID-19. We have decreased the number of COVID-19 cases to ten – three residents and seven staff.
