CoxHealth continues to evolve staff masking policy

As we continue to see lower COVID-19 numbers, our Incident Command team is relaxing masking requirements for fully vaccinated staff in private settings where they are only around their colleagues.

Beginning Wednesday, April 20, fully vaccinated staff members will be able to remove masks when they are away from patient care areas and are not in the presence of patients or visitors. This means fully vaccinated workforce members will not be required to mask in private spaces where they are only interacting with their colleagues. Those locations include breakrooms, private offices and meeting rooms.

Safety is one of our guiding values and in all of our decisions, it is our top priority to protect our patients. We will continue to mask in the presence of patients and visitors because masks help protect those who are at risk. That includes people who may have weakened immune systems, as well as guests and patients whose vaccination status is unknown.

With our high employee vaccination rate, our colleagues are at much lower risk than the general public. That’s why our experts are comfortable with relaxing masking when staff members are together in private areas.

Here are some ways the policy change will affect those outside health care settings:

• Fully vaccinated staff members who work in non-health care settings (Fitness Centers, the Network building, schools/Learning Center and other facilities where patient care is not provided) are not required to mask.
• Fully vaccinated Cox College students are not required to mask while in the classroom setting. They are required to mask in CoxHealth facilities during clinical rotation in the presence of patients or visitors.
• For staff members who have community encounters with patients (CHAH, EMS, Population Health), masking will be required upon entering a patient home or scene. Fully vaccinated workforce members are not required to mask when in vehicles or other private spaces with other workforce members.

In health care settings, staff members and students will still be required to wear a surgical mask when in presence of a patient and/or visitors. This includes when providing clinical care or being in shared spaces such as hallways, nursing stations, cafeterias and elevators.

Our decision to relax masking in private areas is driven by data: We have learned that vaccinated health care workers are not becoming severely ill and having bad outcomes. Our ability to make this change is a testament to the efficacy of vaccines in preventing severe illness and death.

Our policy is aligned with CDC guidelines and is similar to that of leading institutions such as Harvard’s teaching hospitals. We will continue to be guided by data and our approach may change based on our community prevalence, hospitalizations, staff positivity and/or national trends.

We are aware that further waves of COVID-19 are likely and we may need to return to universal masking, either for a surge, or as part of our seasonal precautions.

We are also closely watching how COVID-19 is affecting health care workers in other parts of the United States. In the Northeast and Pacific Northwest, for example, we have seen rising numbers of mild cases in health care workers. This has created staffing issues in some health care systems. To ensure staff safety, as well as patient safety, we could consider reinstituting universal masking if we see signals that our health care workers are starting to test positive.

Please remember that with relaxed staff masking, it is more important than ever for all of us to avoid coming to work while sick.

Workforce members who are not fully vaccinated are required to mask in the presence of any staff member, student, patient, visitor or guest. This approach is consistent with the way we have handled influenza season in the past.

We continue to require that patients and visitors mask upon entering any of our health care facilities.