One of the hardest parts of the pandemic has been the lack of consistency and clarity around PPE for us outpatient providers who can’t always complete treatment via telehealth or with social distance and masks. Here’s the protocol I’ve come up with for which PPE.
In anticipation of vaccines for children at or over 5 (which is more than 80% of my caseload) I’ve added a section for if the patients and provider(s) are fully vaccinated (which means no PPE as government mandates allow).
I don’t strictly adhere to these protocols. I have a couple parents who still prefer all-online (even for evaluations) and I’m making that work as best I can. I also have occasions where a couple of my in-person established speech patients need a visual for a speech sound and I or the patient’s parent will lower our mask to give him/her the needed visual. For this reason, I usually keep my face shield on during all my in-patient appointments. I’ve also switched to having speech patients wear a mask throughout their appointments as long as they can.
