A Letter To Our Families During COVID-19

Dear Patients and Families:

We hope this letter finds you and your family well. Our community and nation have been through a lot over the last few months, and all of us are looking forward to resuming our normal habits and routines.

While many things have changed, one thing has remained the same: Our commitment for every child diagnosed with cancer, and his or her family, to reach their full potential.

We want to tell you about the infection control procedures we will be following in our practice to keep patients and staff safe.

Our offices follow infection control recommendations made by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). We follow the activities of these agencies so that we are up-to-date on any new rulings or guidance that may be issued. We do this to make sure that our infection control procedures are current and adhere to each agencies’ recommendations.

You may see some changes when it is time for your next appointment. We made these changes to help protect our patients and staff.

• Our office will communicate with you beforehand to ask some screening questions. You’ll be asked those same questions again when you are in the office for your appointment.  
• We will be checking temperatures on patients and parents prior to entering the office using non- contact forehead thermometers.  
• We have hand sanitizer that we will ask you to use when you enter the office.  
• You may see that our waiting areas will no longer offer magazines, children’s toys and so forth, since those items are difficult to clean and disinfect.  
• Appointments will be managed to allow for social distancing between patients. That might mean that you’re offered fewer options for scheduling your appointment.  
• We ask that you minimize bringing guest when you visit the office so that only the patient (and parent if child is young or has special needs) is in the clinic area.  Parents of older children and teens will be asked to wait in the car until the appointment is completed so that we can minimize the number of people in the waiting areas.

We look forward to seeing you all again and are happy to answer any questions you may have about the steps we take to keep you, and every patient, safe in our practice.

We value your trust and loyalty and look forward to welcoming back our patients and staff. Please visit our website www.hatcherfoundation.org for further information.

Sincerely,

Amy Jo Osborn, President + CEO

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