Elderly Assisted Living Facility
Received a call from a one-hundred (100) bed Skilled Nursing Facility that had a confirmed case of Legionnaires Disease in response to the Indiana Department of Health (IDOH) requesting the facility have a third party investigation for Legionella Testing and Planning.
How LSS Helped the Client:
- Helped the client remediate potentially deadly disease with a resident population with weakened immune system and to address immediate concerns to the state department of health.
- Post disinfection implemented a protocol to avoid having the issue arise again in not only the subject facility but in the client’s other 25 facilities.
Industries We Serve
Healthcare Project Highlights
- Onsite Investigation – conducted an onsite investigation and developed a sampling strategy that covered the suspected areas of the facility along with a comprehensive evaluation of the building’s water systems. This sampling strategy was submitted to IDOH and accepted. Forty samples were collected from the facility, including surface swabs from suspect fixtures and bulk water samples in representative areas of all resident spaces. The initial finding was of low levels of Legionella pneumophila in several locations in the facility.
- Disinfection Strategy – A disinfection strategy was developed with the customer to include a heat treatment of the facility and point of use filters in place until the building could achieve the IDOH requirement of three consecutive clean samplings. The first heat treatment did reduce the amount of Legionella discovered in the facility, but did not eliminate all of the bacteria present. The subsequent heat treatment did eliminate the Legionella
- Post Disinfection Protocol – Bi-weekly testing was setup and the facility was able found to be Legionella free over the next three samplings. The customer requested help to develop a routine sampling strategy for all twenty-five assisted living facilities that they manage and that plan was implemented within two months at all facilities. At this time no other cases of Legionnaires Disease have been reported in any of this customer’s facilities.
Services Performed
- Legionella Testing and Planning