​DHS COVID-19 PROVIDER GUIDANCE // ODP​

ODP Announcement 20-049: Reporting Cases of COVID-19 and Requesting Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

Issued: April 30, 2020 

Audience

All Qualified Providers, Supports Coordination Organizations (SCOs) providing services through the Consolidated, Person/Family Directed Support and Community Living (ID/A) Waivers and the Adult Autism Waiver (AAW), Administrative Entities (AEs), and Private Intermediate Care Facilities for Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities (ICF/IDs) 

Purpose

To provide guidance to stakeholders regarding reporting cases of COVID-19 to the Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH) and the Office of Developmental Programs (ODP).

Discussion

The Office of Developmental Programs (ODP) remains committed to keeping stakeholders informed with the latest information and practice guidance, necessitated by the evolving guidance from both federal and state government. 

The following table is a quick reference that outlines activities, actions and stakeholders for whom this applies when reporting COVID-19 cases. This Announcement also gives more detailed information to assist stakeholders about the reporting/requesting process. 

Due to new guidance from the Pennsylvania DOH for requesting Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), ODP has separated previous guidance contained in Announcement 20- 049 regarding PPE requests, which can now be found in ODP Announcement 20-050: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19): Requesting Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for Licensed Residential Facilities from the Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH).

Reporting Cases of COVID-19 to PA DOH 

At the onset of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, ODP and the PA DOH requested that providers report positive cases directly to the PA DOH. This is no longer required because health care professionals are reporting all positive cases to the DOH. 

Reporting Cases of COVID-19 to ODP 

To help mitigate the spread of COVID-19, providers, ICF/IDs and SCOs are required to report suspected and confirmed cases of COVID-19 for individuals receiving services and for people that work directly with service recipients.

• Suspected means that a person has been tested for the COVID-19 virus and is awaiting the test results OR a test has been ordered by a health care practitioner, but the person has not been tested yet.
• Confirmed means that a person was tested for the COVID-19 virus and the test was positive OR was diagnosed with COVID-19 by a health care practitioner even if no test was completed. 

Reporting Individuals 

Suspected and confirmed cases among individuals are required to be reported in the EIM system. When an individual is suspected of having COVID-19, the incident must be classified as “Emergency Room Visit – Illness New” in the Initial Section of the incident report. 

A yes/no question reading “Incident involves suspected/confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis” has been added to the incident classification page; users must select “yes” in response to this question. A yes/no question reading “Incident involves confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis (resulting from a positive test or documentation from a health care practitioner)” has been added to the Final Section of the incident report.

• If an individual’s test results return a positive result (i.e. the individual has COVID-19), users must select “yes” in response to this question.
• If an individual’s test results return a negative result (i.e. the individual does not have COVID-19), users must select “no” in response to this question.
  

To ensure that ODP has access to data involving near real-time diagnoses of COVID-19, providers, ICF/IDs and SCOs are asked to update the incident report as soon as the test results are available including when there is a confirmed case of COVID-19 either through testing or diagnosis by a healthcare practitioner. 

In order to accomplish this, users are asked to initiate the Final Section document and answer the question “Incident involves confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis (resulting from a positive test or documentation from a health care practitioner)” contained on the Verification of Incident Classification page of the incident report. Once answered, this page must then be saved. Once the page is saved, this data element will be populated to the Incident Custom Report. The Final Section document does not need to be submitted in order to push this data element to the Incident Custom Report. 

Users are reminded that the following should not be reported as suspected cases in EIM:

• An individual displays symptoms but is not referred for testing and not given the diagnosis of COVID-19 by a health care practitioner.
• An individual displays symptoms and is sent home with a recommendation for quarantine/self-quarantine but is not given the diagnosis of COVID-19 by a health care practitioner
  

Reporting Staff

• Suspected and confirmed cases among staff are required to be reported to ODP’s Regulatory Administration Unit.
• Suspected or confirmed cases must be reported using the template below. 

Instructions for reporting staff

• The attached template is to be completed and copied in the body of an email
• DO NOT encrypt your email; encryption is not necessary as no Protected Health Information (PHI)/Personally Identifiable Information (PII) is being requested
• If this is a new report, please complete all areas of the table
• For numbers 2, 4, and 6 on the table, please DELETE any responses that do not apply
• If this is a follow-up to report results of a SUSPECTED case:
• Forward the original email with the completed table.
• Only complete the “Test Results section”
• Email to RA-PW6100REGADMIN@pa.gov
  

Related Materials