As employers begin to transition their employees from remote work to in-office operations, it is important to implement practices that prioritize safety, are tailored to their workforce and draw on technology solutions for support.
CDC guidelines for returning to work may differ from the protocol that each state and county enforces, so businesses will need to adapt their guidelines based on a mix of external factors and internal readiness. For example, organizations must consider the capacity of their community to cope with a potential outbreak and where the spread of disease occurs within the community to inform their own internal responses.
During a May 21 virtual workshop hosted by Becker's Hospital Review and sponsored by Microsoft, industry leaders discussed best practices for balancing internal readiness and external factors as well as how technology can support efforts to bring employees back to work during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The speakers were:
- Fatima Paruk, MD, chief medical information officer at Microsoft Health and Life Sciences
- Edgar Wilson, principal program manager of business applications at Microsoft Health and Life Sciences
Here are five takeaways:
1. Prioritize feelings of safety. The safety of employees, patients and customers is paramount when re-opening the workplace. Leaders should make their decisions and determine workplace protocol based on scientific evidence and remain flexible as conditions evolve.
"As we think about reopening our facilities we must know that our employees feel safe to come back to work, our patients feel safe to come in and get treatment when needed and that our other customers that might need to access our facilities are going to be OK to do so," Dr. Paruk said.
2. Remain flexible. Bringing employees back to work will require efficient COVID-19 screening to track employees' health and potential exposures to the virus. While the organization may adapt the work environment by instituting stricter cleaning protocols, moving desks six feet apart or enabling virtual work, hospital leaders must be prepared to quickly transition back to remote operations if an outbreak occurs.
3. Balance external factors with internal readiness. When defining the organization's readiness to return to the "new" normal, employers must consider not just internal factors but also external. Internal factors are the actions or things that need to be put in place for a business to safely reopen, such as implementing social distancing protocols and national-standard cleaning levels, according to Dr. Paruk. Internal readiness also depends on external factors, such as discerning whether the community has the capacity to cope with a potential COVID-19 outbreak, from testing capacity to availability of hospital ICU beds.
"It's a really fine balance, and then ultimately there will be interdependencies as well," Dr. Paruk said. "How do we understand that our communities are safe to reopen as such and can we force everybody to go back to work if the schools are still closed? There are a lot of factors that we really have to consider as our communities are dynamic and they all work together to successfully battle COVID-19."
4. Technology can assist with COVID-19 prevention, screening and tracking efforts. To help employers bring back staff during the pandemic, Microsoft partnered with Mazek Global to develop solutions to keep employees safe in and out of the workplace, Mr. Wilson said. The tech company created an app for employees that assesses individual risk levels for COVID-19 before coming back to work.
5. COVID-19 dashboards keep employers engaged with employee health. Drawing on employee responses from back-to-work questionnaires, Microsoft's employer dashboards gather insights and data from employees and lay it out in a single platform. When employees report symptoms to the app, employers can access a "holistic view into employees' overall risk in certain departments" that may experience an infection outbreak because they work in close proximity. This technology can work as a preventive measure to identify potential outbreaks in the office more quickly and reduce employee contact.
Click here to listen to a recording of the workshop. Click here to listen to Becker's Healthcare's podcast episode with Dr. Paruk.