Businesses in every industry are being affected by COVID-19. In particular, offices, warehouses and other instances of co-located employees are being disrupted in order to reduce the spread of the virus.
However, working from home does not work for every business. If your business is being negatively affected by COVID-19, you want your employees back in the workplace just as much as they want to safely be back at work. The good news is that this is possible when you have the right systems in place. You may have considered contact tracing to track employees. However, SMS symptom monitoring is often a more feasible solution to put in place for your business to ensure employees are safe before reporting to work with symptoms which can create peace of mind and have significant benefits for your business.
What is App based Contact Tracing and How Does It Work?
Contact tracing is being used to help prevent and lower the risk of COVID-19 transmission. It involves a process of identifying those that are carrying the virus and managing who has been in contact and exposed to COVID. The purpose of contact tracing is to prevent transmission by interrupting the chain that can lead to a cluster of cases. Many healthcare services, communities and businesses are using contact tracing.
Therefore, if someone has COVID-19, anyone that has been in close contact with them should be notified. This can be anyone, friends or otherwise, that is within six feet of the person for 15 minutes or more. It is recommended that any individual in contact with a confirmed COVID case should be tested.
In addition, contact tracing is used for exposed people to learn whether they should self-isolate for 14 days. Clinical care advice can also be given if someone has been exposed so that they can manage their symptoms.
What are the Potential Disadvantages of Contact Tracing?
While contact tracing can be effective, there are certain limitations that exist and disrupt its success rate. Here are some of the disadvantages of this system.
There is a Socioeconomic Bias
Contact tracing and the active encouragement of its use does not acknowledge the socioeconomic bias that it promotes. Indeed, not everyone has a smartphone and this means that it is not always easy to trace who has come in close contact with another individual or location where there are reports of positive cases.
Assumption of Technology Literacy
For those who do have smartphones, this does not mean that they understand how to download and navigate a new application. Contact tracing assumes everyone has technology literacy and knows how to correctly use the app on their smartphone.
Not Effective Until Mass Use
If only some people or businesses are using contact tracing, this is not going to work to protect the community from COVID-19. In order to work, a lot of people in a community have to use it and this can help to reduce the spread of the virus.
Requires Appropriate Use by Individuals
Not everyone leaves the house with their smartphone. However, this is required for contact tracing to be effective since it monitors a user’s location. In addition, the system depends on users having all of the appropriate settings enabled.
There are Privacy Issues
Contact Tracing Software operates using and tracking your location. It monitors your movements and where you go. For a lot of people, this becomes a privacy issue. In turn, this leads to fewer people installing the app and the effectiveness of contact tracing.
Different Apps May Not Work Together
If users are downloading different contact tracing apps, different data formats may not be compatible. This could make case management more complex and slow down contact tracing systems.
Confidential and Security Risks
Unfortunately, hackers are always looking for new ways to steal personal data. Contact tracing can leave your business vulnerable to security breaches and the confidentiality of your employees may be compromised. Due to being a relatively new concept, there are still many unknown.
What is SMS Symptom Monitoring?
Just as the name suggests, short message service or SMS symptom monitoring is a way for businesses and other organizations to track COVID-19 symptoms. Every employee can receive a text message to their mobile device each day and it will ask whether they are experiencing COVID symptoms. This is a way for you to track your workforce and see if anyone should self-isolate away from the office. Indeed, if the user responds that they are experiencing symptoms, a real time alert will notify an admin that they should follow up with the individual and they can know based on policy they should wait to hear from you before coming into work.
Traditionally, and through certain contact tracing systems, monitoring would be conducted via telephone calls. This involves a lot of resources and simply takes too long to be quick and effective at preventing virus outbreaks. Now, SMS symptom monitoring takes over and allows users to report their symptoms quickly and efficiently.
How Can This Solve the Challenges and Business Gaps Created by Contact Tracing?
SMS symptom monitoring can be highly effective in lowering the transmission of COVID-19. Indeed, it can help solve some of the challenges presented by contact tracing. This may be better for your business and getting employees back to work safely. Let’s take a look at some of the advantages of this system.
Users Do Not Require Smartphone
There is no socioeconomic divide with SMS symptom monitoring. It does not require an expensive, high-tech mobile device to operate. Instead, any device can simply receive a text message and this can be used by employees to say whether they are experiencing symptoms or not.
Quick and Easy Responses
With SMS symptom monitoring, there is no need for users to be tech-savvy. Instead, they only have to give quick and easy answers to the text message they receive. This means that this system is suitable for employees of all ages and abilities. You do not have to download or operate any apps.
Enjoy Having an Alert System
You want to get your employees back to work. This is possible when you know the employees are experiencing symptoms. Through SMS symptom monitoring, you can enjoy an alert system that tells you the employees that are going to have to self-isolate. This can allow you to accommodate their roles in the office or make arrangements for them to work at home.
Reduces Admin Burden
It is easier to monitor a larger number of employees with SMS symptom monitoring. This is going to ease the burden on administration when users are not reporting symptoms and allows the system to function more efficiently.
How Can mobileMonitoring Help Your Business?
mobileMonitoring is the trusted name in SMS symptom monitoring, used to keep communities and employees safe and healthy and return to work safely when required. We know that it is difficult to bring back employees to the office. However, having a system in place like our platform can help you mitigate risk quickly and pivot your strategy to keep employees safe with real time data.
We are a trusted partner with federal, national and local agencies, and bring this expertise to your business. We offer a two-way SMS text messaging service that allows employees to report their symptoms without burdening your administrative team. There is no need to download an app and for multi-site businesses everything can be monitored within a single platform.
With mobileMonitoring, you can send emergency notifications to every one of your employees automatically each day as well as send special updates if needed. This is possible even when the internet is down or if your employees do not own smartphones. Feel secure in knowing the process is compliant with industry standard best practices in data security and privacy. This includes compliance with HIPAA, PII and PCI standards. Learn more and mobileMonitoring in action.