LENEXA, Kan. — As the need for personal protective equipment grows, companies are stepping in to provide them to people and organizations who need it most.
It's one of the issues Sunflower Health Plan is tackling in Kansas. The company has distributed more than 450,000 PPE items across the state to nursing facilities and providers of home and community-based services.
"We know that there is a little bit higher risk, because they have multiple care givers providing their care, maybe coming in and out of their home," Sunflower Health Vice President of Long Term Services, Stephanie Rasmussen said. "We have individuals who live in facilities and may be in higher risk with the number of people they come in contact with, so it's really important they have the appropriate PPE for both themselves and their caregivers."
On Tuesday, Sunflower Health delivered PPE to the Johnson County Community Developmental Disabilities Organization.
The organization serves as a single point of entry for people who need intellectual and developmental disability services.
In Johnson County alone, Sunflower Health provided roughly 75,000 masks.
"Our corporate company Centene has been purchasing large bulks of PPE and allowing the individual health plan and individual states to get it out to those people who self-direct their care into our home and community base and our nursing facilities," Rasmussen said.
Quality Assurance Analyst with the Johnson County Community Developmental Disabilities Organization, Debby Slifer said this distribution helps serve roughly 3,000 people in their network.
"We have a lot of individuals who live in congregate settings and group homes and so these masks for the staff to protect them with the individuals is really important," Slifer said.
Sunflower Health is working on providing more items in the future, including gowns, gloves and hand sanitizer.
