By: J. Alex Fernandez, Natalie Cheng

Sep 9th 2020

Were you prepared for the pandemic? Most companies weren’t. Now that we’ve all come to this predicament, how do you deal with COVID and operating your business safely? There are various things that employers can do including improved sanitation practices, obtaining and distributing out PPE for staff, and screening and testing staff for COVID-19. What has your business done to handle the pandemic?

In terms of screening and testing staff for COVID-19, do you use a syndromic surveillance tool? In order to keep costs low, many companies have opted to implement their own self-assessment whether it be through pen and paper or by using google docs. It may keep costs low initially, but eventually it will not be as effective as a professional employee self-assessment application. Also, using a pen and paper will prove to be more inefficient and unsanitary (think of the germs and the amount of times you’ll have to sanitize the pen and paper for each employee). It can also prove to be wasteful environmentally with the amount of paper required to screen as well as with the amount of cleaning wipes or paper towels you’ll have to inevitably use to sanitize. There’s also the issue of compliance. Companies risk losing more money in the future by trying to cut corners now. Does your DIY tool account for compliance and does it protect your company from liability?

In order to have an effective syndromic surveillance or COVID-19 screening tool, consider your own tool’s ability to do the following:

1. Store HIPAA information safely and when needed by correct personnel at the firm
2. Separate employee health information from HR employee information
3. Differentiate visitor and contract worker information and not capture any personal health info at all while effectively accounting for and documenting that all individuals coming onto the premises have been properly screened
4. Generate historical reports for litigation or litigation prevention to show your total efforts and compliance with CDC and ADA recommended guidelines
5. Track the timing of when employees change screening statuses and know who all was in the work area for contact tracing and risk mitigation purposes
6. Ensure proper data security

If your current method of screening doesn’t account for the points listed above, you may want to consider implementing a professional COVID-19 screening tool. If an employer chooses to not capture all the needed health information because of liability from employees or data issues, they open themselves up to bigger liability issues from litigation due to the lack of ability to prove compliance with the CDC and other applicable guidelines.

At Luminare, we carry the entire burden of that liability in our enterprise hospital-proven screening and data capture, retention, and security practices. Our COVID-19 screening tool, Quickscreen, was created by a physician and medically backed. Quickscreen by Luminare is an ecofriendly and sanitary way to conduct health screens plus it’s easy to use. To learn more about our COVID-19 screening product, Quickscreen, please reach out to us.