SafetyLine’s Business Intelligence Feature with Contact Tracing to Help Combat COVID-19 Spread
Preventing exposure through social distancing
With masses of people emerging from quarantine into public places, wary health officials are keeping a close eye on if or how the virus will be transmitted during this extraordinary scenario. Over the past several months, governments and health authorities have encouraged and enforced social distancing from others to stop of the spread of COVID-19. But now that we are slowing the spread through new social practices such as:
Maintain a distance of at least six feet or two meters.
Avoiding large gatherings and any close-contact interactions with people not from your household.
Reserve travel for only essential trips such as groceries or medical purposes.
Work from home if possible.
The next stage of the battle: contact tracing
As the strict quarantine measures are lifted, provinces are moving toward the next phase of opening the economy with many business allowing workers to return to work – a welcome decision considering how difficult it is for certain industries to employ staff working from home. But things will be different. This time, employers will have new safety precautions, such as cleaning, new protective equipment, and of course, the rule that staff maintain a physical distance of at least two meters from other people. With this major development comes a new strategy in minimizing exposure to COVID-19: Contact Tracing.
Never heard of it? You’re not the only one. But for decades, contact tracing has been used behind the pandemic battle scenes, an instrumental weapon against several deadly and debilitating communicable diseases including polio, smallpox, Ebola, and tuberculosis, protecting millions of lives around the world. How it works is that contact tracing identifies those who have been in contact with an infected person, tests them for infection and then treats them if needed, finding and isolating cases before it spreads.
Contact tracing for your workforce
To help resolute company managers and public health professionals in their COVID-19 battle, SafetyLine has adapted its current technology and implemented contact tracing as a business intelligence feature to its existing workers safety technology – without the addition of any other device or software – tracking and preventing the virus’ spread both efficiently and quickly. Currently, on their GPS-enabled smartphones, thousands of Canadian workers are kept safe with SafetyLine’s proven check-in monitoring service as well as GPS location + tracking, man-down, fall-detection and panic-button features.
While using SafetyLine’s existing technology, administrators in your business will have access to your worker’s location history. Administrators can review the worker’s location history and document the people and places they interacted with. Using SafetyLine’s Business Intelligence feature, we are able to generate a list of all SafetyLine device users and their interactions if a worker using SafetyLine has been infected. SafetyLine’s Business Intelligence tool will generate a report if the workers have come into contact with another worker within two meters. This comprehensive report is intended as an investigative tool showing you the interactions of each workers and the proximity from each team member. The results of this report can depend on the limitations of GPS and indoor location technology.
Spotting potential spreaders
Contact tracing cannot predict where COVID-19 infection will occur in your company, but it can identify staff who are not practicing precautionary measures (E.g., two-meter distance), allowing you to proactively spot those who could be at higher risk of spreading the virus to others. By identifying these potential situations, you can work with the individual directly, putting customized safety measures in place, and eliminating the potential for infection amongst your team.
Spotting potential infection areas
Like identifying those who are at higher risk of spreading the virus, our Business Intelligence feature can also help you identify areas where unsafe contact is regularly taking place. Once you’ve identified these high-risk areas, you can then put measures in place to mitigate the danger before anyone in your organization gets sick.
Contact tracing privacy with SafetyLine
It is on these smartphones that contact tracing of COVID-19 will be enabled voluntarily with explicit consent and privacy from SafetyLine users. The locations of users will not be tracked without the permission of the person using the service and device. The feature is designed to protect the privacy of the user and any collected location or health data will only be used for public health purposes.
SafetyLine Lone Worker is Certified Protected B status by the Government of Canada. The certification enables Government of Canada departments to securely store and manage sensitive data within SafetyLine. This certification also reinforces SafetyLine's status as a trusted partner to all public sector organizations. To read more on Protected B please visit: https://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/esc-src/protection-safeguarding/niveaux-levels-eng.html
Save time with on-demand reporting
During a pandemic, time is of the essence. So far, contact tracing for COVID-19 has been done manually, using the limited time of public health staff and/or volunteers, requiring them to track patients’ movements as well as their recent contacts, one by one like detective work. With Canadians coming out of quarantine and increasing contact with each other, the workload of contact tracing could increase exponentially. The automated SafetyLine contact tracing technology will significantly save time for organizations.
Case study: contact tracing
Roughly a month ago, a company, that SafetyLine has worked with for years, experienced a scary and stressful situation. On its loyal team of about 30 workers, the company suddenly had three cases of COVID-19. Through SafetyLine’s contact tracing feature, company managers were able to identify the worker who unknowingly infected two of their fellow team members and were then able to track other staff members who the sick worker interacted with. Without much additional work, this technology prevented further infection within the company as well as infection within its surrounding community, potentially saving many workers, and allowing the company to continue business operations.
Working together for the community
Not only will this feature protect the workers who you care about, but it will also help your families and communities by employing an effective tool against the spread and contamination of COVID-19. Do you want to help fight the spread of the virus? With a SafetyLine subscription, our contact tracing feature is FREE to help you battle and flatten the deadly curve.
Official press release
SafetyLine's New Business Intelligence Feature Helping Combat COVID-19 With Contact Tracing: https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/safetyline-s-new-business-intelligence-feature-helping-combat-covid-19-with-contact-tracing-889611805.html