CAREMINDr Releases Back-to-Work Employee Screening Tool to Detect Early Signs of COVID-19
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When asked how this technology could specifically apply to the hospitality industry, Caremindr shared this helpful information:
Hotel and Restaurants have the problem of employees starting at different times, with differing length of shifts, and work schedules that vary throughout each week and with holidays or local events. Inherently this is a moving staff arrangement that does not lend itself to the styles of clinical precautions used in other large businesses (e.g. manufacturing plant).
CAREMINDr's Back-to-Work Solution is well-suited to the needs of Hotels and Restaurants for clinical management:
- Each employee self-reports an hour before they report for their shift, appropriate to when that shift begins
- Each self-report consists of the employee’s current temperature + specific screening questions, as recommended by the CDC and other national health agencies
- The data reported by the employee is instantly forwarded to a clinical reviewer, typically part of a local medical group or clinic.
- The employee also retains a copy of their reported information, for personal review or if needed to show to someone
- Every sumitted report provides immediate guidance to the employee:
a) “All is OK, please report to work” --OR--
b) “STOP – follow these instructions <Click Here> ”
- The Instructions are tailored for each hotel / restaurant site, to reflect guidance that is appropriate for that locale.
- The employee’s app also has 1-click emergency phone numbers pre-programmed, to get help if they cannot follow the guidance by themself
The employee will be confident that they are taking the best steps available today to protect themselves, their families, coworkers and guests even before they arrive on-site.
The employer will have clear information, timestamped and submitted by each employee, confirming that a clinically protective approach is operating.
When an employee needs further testing: it is quickly identified, away from the place of work and can be dealt with immediately, reducing the potential spread.
CAREMINDr, which delivers mobile-enabled remote patient monitoring (RPM) solutions that give doctors the ability to check in on patients in between face-to-face visits, announced the release of the Back-to-Work module of its app designed to give employers and healthcare organizations an employee screening tool to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
The solution, already available in Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store for Android, arrives just as many U.S. states are beginning to re-open their economies and are allowing businesses and other organizations to resume in-person operations. CAREMINDr’s Back-to-Work RPM solution enables employers to start returning their employees to the workplace with preventive measures in place to identify potential symptoms of COVID-19, which could prevent the spread of the virus within workplaces and communities.
“With a COVID-19 vaccine many months or even years away, employee screening and testing are essential for employers who need to have their teams working together in the same location,” said Harry Soza, CEO of CAREMINDr. “The Back-to-Work app offers a quick, effective and consistent means to monitor and identify employees who may be showing signs of the virus before they arrive at work, which can protect co-workers and the community at large.”
In the Back-to-Work program, employers partner with a medical practice or other healthcare organization, which has a Clinical Review Center that reviews employees’ temperatures and symptoms, which are entered into the app by the employee (if the employer has its own onsite medical providers, they perform the clinical review function).
Each day an hour or two before their shifts begin, employees report their temperature and any potential COVID-19 symptoms they are experiencing into the Back-to-Work Care Journey. Employees are also asked if they have been within six feet of anyone exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms since they last reported in. CAREMINDr’s RPM technology flags abnormal responses among the reports that the Clinical Review Center team follows up on as appropriate. If an abnormal report is received, the employer, depending on symptoms and their protocols, may then request the employee receive a COVID-19 test or may recommend quarantining at home and monitoring symptoms.
The Back-to-Work Clinical Review Center creates a log of all the employee reports received each day. Those reports with alerts are listed at the top of the employer’s report, with a red dot for rapid recognition and immediate action. A checkbox indicates if a reviewer has examined the report. Reviewers can view historical reports by patient, employer, region or symptom to identify potential outbreaks on a micro- or macro-level, so they can more easily perform contact tracing investigations.
“Based on the data from these reports, public health officials can spot potential emerging outbreak hotspots in communities before the virus spreads further,” Soza said. “That is why we’re so excited about this latest version of our app. In addition to helping employers resume at least some of their pre-crisis operations, Back-to-Work helps protect the health and safety of our families, friends and entire communities.”
The Back-to-Work Journey is one of CAREMINDr’s exclusive Care Journeys; others include hypertension, diabetes and heart disease. These journeys enable healthcare providers to efficiently monitor and check in with patients between face-to-face appointments through automated, scheduled, condition-specific and clinically relevant patient-reported data. CAREMINDr also offers a separate COVID-19 Monitoring solution to support the management of patients with related symptoms or who have tested positive for COVID-19 and are self-quarantining at home.
Care Journeys are often supported by home medical devices such as thermometers, pulse oximeters, glucometers and blood pressure cuffs. Reporting data from these devices and answering clinically relevant questions through the app establishes an accountable dialogue for patients with providers—one that nurtures trust and engagement. This approach enables physician practices, health systems and payers to reduce emergency department visits and hospital admissions by detecting health deterioration earlier, while encouraging care plan adherence through repeated, automated contact with the patient that encourages their action and response.