Our organization works with global corporations, health systems and government agencies who provide occupational and employee health services to their own employees, and often to third-party employers.
As our clients respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been working around the clock and through the last several weekends to make rapid refinements and enhancements to our existing functionality — re-configuring medical surveillance, employee and supervisor portals, tasking, case management, encounter template and reporting functionality to support a wide variety of client use cases. In addition to working with individual clients, we have invited our entire client community to meet weekly — fostering collaboration and information sharing. This unprecedented effort is equipping our clients to use health information technology in support of COVID-19 prevention and response measures.
New upgrades include:
COVID-19 test site support (one of our clients has been designated as a drive-through test site for employees and the general public):
- Limited employee demographic information is captured at the collection site and matched in the Enterprise Health solution
- Test results route to our solution, and results are shared with clinic staff for further monitoring and with employees via portal
- Results sent via interface to a local health information exchange who is helping to accumulate statewide metrics
Employee monitoring:
- A COVID-19 monitoring surveillance panel configured to manage employee populations based on client-specific inclusion/exclusion criteria. Business rules trigger emails to employees at specified intervals with a link to an employee portal
- Employees self-report symptoms via COVID-19 questionnaire on the portal, and submitted responses trigger a task and notification email to clinic staff identifying symptomatic or at-risk employees who require additional monitoring
- A COVID-19 monitoring encounter and case management worklist designed to capture and manage information for affected employees
- A set of reports including key metrics on monitoring efforts
Work-from-home accommodation request (one of our global clients is in a mission-critical industry that relies largely on employees working on-site, and they asked us to help facilitate employee requests to work at home. The intent is to assess employees at high risk for complications and identify those who need accommodations):
- Employees can request a work-from-home accommodation by completing a questionnaire on the employee portal. Employee consent is collected electronically, along with job data and information on underlying health conditions
- Submitted questionnaires generate a clinical task, and assigned personnel can review submitted responses, assess risk factors and quickly render a medical opinion/accommodation recommendation
- After the clinic staff makes a determination, an email is triggered to the employee and their supervisor to arrange next steps
Travel management:
- An updated travel questionnaire that employees can complete via the employee portal to report on past or upcoming travel and report on symptoms and potential exposure
- Submitted questionnaires generate alerts to clinic staff
- An updated travel screening encounter that includes recommendations for symptom screening
- A report to track travel screening metrics
As each product enhancement is configured, we are building a rapid deployment package including upgrade files, configuration options, documentation, training and support — with an emphasis on streamlined setup and deployment for all interested clients. Our application support team is working closely with clients to monitor performance based on real-world workflows, and we are rapidly making adjustments as pandemic response continues to evolve.
Our development team is also staying on top of new guidance from standards bodies, and we have added new COVID-19 ICD-10, CPT and LOINC (lab) codes to our application.
We are also packaging some of these capabilities on a stand-alone basis for organizations looking for electronic tools that can be rapidly and affordably deployed to monitor employee populations.
Management and monitoring of employee populations for COVID-19 is dynamic and rapidly evolving, and we will continue to develop and refine new capabilities in concert with our clients over the next several weeks. This pandemic underscores and reinforces the critically important role of occupational and employee health, and our staff is unwavering in its commitment to support our client community and the important work they are doing.
