Moving at the "Speed of Trust"

Enterprise Health delivers functionality to meet OSHA's new COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS)

On June 21, OSHA adopted a new COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) that requires healthcare employers to report all work-related COVID-19 fatalities and in-patient hospitalizations to OSHA. Under the new ETS, these employers must report each employee COVID-19 fatality to OSHA within 8 hours of learning about the fatality and each employee COVID-19 in-patient hospitalization to OSHA within 24 hours of learning about the in-patient hospitalization — requirements that hinge on the ability of the employers to efficiently capture, manage and access the data they need. 

Bestselling author, Stephen M. R. Covey recently published a white paper that explains how important trust has been when responding to the global pandemic. When teams and organizations operate with high trust, they significantly outperform and can move more quickly to solve problems than those with low trust. This concept is the basis of his book, The Speed of Trust.

Throughout the pandemic, we have collaborated with our clients and moved with this type of speed to refine functionality in the Enterprise Health solution and help our employer clients manage their responses to this COVID crisis. Again, with the issue of this ETS, we have rapidly made several more updates to make sure our hospitals and health system clients are well equipped to meet these quick turn requirements and stay compliant.  

Here are some of the key ETS requirements and how the Enterprise Health solution satisfies them:

• Employers must have a COVID-19 plan that includes policies and procedures to determine employees’ vaccination status. Enterprise Health satisfies this requirement by allowing a clinical user to document the administration of a COVID vaccination. It also allows employees to upload documentation of a COVID vaccination or to request exemption using an online declination form. 
• Employers are encouraged to use telehealth services when available and appropriate in order to limit the number of people entering the workplace. Enterprise Health offers optional telehealth capabilities embedded right into the application. This makes the audio and video capabilities simple to use and does not require any special software. Plus, the visit can be recorded, and the audio or video file can be saved directly into the employee’s health record.
• Employers must screen employees before each workday and each shift. The Enterprise Health team incorporated symptom monitoring surveys and functionality into the solution early in the pandemic. We also launched an optional mobile app to make it easier for employees to complete the surveys and to allow push notifications instead of text messages.
• If a COVID-19 test is required by the employer for screening purposes, the employer must provide the test at no cost to the employee. Clinical users of Enterprise Health can order and record results for COVID-19 tests either in a COVID monitoring case or within a visit encounter. We also integrate with lab vendors to make this data exchange electronic.
• Employee notifications to employer of COVID-19 illness or symptoms. Enterprise Health employee portals make communication between employee and clinic personnel easy. Employees notify the clinic by completing the COVID-19 symptom monitoring questionnaire. 
• Employer notifications to employees of COVID-19 exposure in the workplace. Early in the pandemic, we set up the ability to contract trace employees with whom the infected person has been in contact. Those employees are notified via email. The solution also enables clinical users to document use of personal protective equipment (PPE) in the employee’s chart.
• Medical removal from the workplace. Enterprise Health’s case management functionality includes COVID-19 monitoring and contact tracing to track exposure dates, referrals for testing, test results, close contacts, time off work (restrictions due to COVID), return to work date, email notifications and COVID data reporting. 
• Recordkeeping. When an employee tests positive for COVID-19, users of Enterprise Health can capture all the required data in one place, and the solution’s robust reporting functionality simplifies the tracking of the case and recording on OSHA Forms 300, 300A and 301. Our team has modified the application to track required case details pertaining to hospitalizations and fatalities as well as set up automated email notifications that comply with the new time standards for reporting. We have also developed a COVID log to support ETS requirements. 

There is a lot of behind-the-scenes work that goes into meeting these new standards, but rest assured. Our team at Enterprise Health is on top of the requirements and accelerated our innovation to deliver the functionality our clients need.