The U.S. is reopening for business. This is good news: a symbol of hope and restoration for our neighbors who have been without income and the businesses hit hard by the economic decline. But without proper plans to prevent localized outbreaks of the disease within workplaces and the community, reopening threatens to make the social and economic hardships of the past few weeks all for naught. Revised models from epidemiologists are predicting COVID-19 could yet run rampant through communities that have so far been spared the worst, and businesses that just reopened may find themselves closed once again and possibly unable to recover.
Businesses are grappling with the question of how to reopen safely. Each and every employer — food processing plants, school districts, pharmaceutical companies and technology companies — has different worksites and employees. Despite their differences, each of these employers wants the same two things: to get their people back to work quickly and to help them stay at work safely.
While a number of companies have emerged with “back to work” plans, these plans typically include little more than antibody testing (which does not protect workers, but rather indicates those who may have protection from previous exposure), temperature screening (which only detects a symptomatic carrier days after he or she has already shed the virus to others), and basic hygiene and PPE. These plans are one-size-fits-all, despite the vast differences in the population health, physical environments and operational requirements of employers — factors which all impact both an employer’s risk/benefit calculations and the ability to deploy different COVID-19 mitigation strategies in the workplace.
Enter Proactive MD Re-entry
Proactive MD, a Greenville-based leader in advanced primary care, partners with companies to help their people live healthier lives. The organization has recently launched the Proactive MD Re-entry Program to lay the groundwork for safely and steadily bringing employees back to the workplace.
“We are hopeful for the future as our communities begin to move forward in the midst of COVID-19,” says John Collier, president and CEO of Proactive MD. “At Proactive MD, we believe in care beyond clinic walls. Right now, this means supporting employers and employees as they return to work — ensuring that they are in a protected environment where their health is a priority. We know every employer is different and has different needs, so we want to provide evidence-based, customized policies and process recommendations that enhance safety and confidence in the workplace through our Proactive MD Re-entry Program.”
Proactive MD’s Re-entry Program is grounded in a unique business intelligence tool called ARCnet. Using this tool, Proactive MD’s expert-led consulting team can create effective, custom solutions for every employer — no matter their size or industry.
ARCnet is based on up-to-date epidemiological and virology research, enabling Proactive MD to model an employer’s population and worksite during the COVID-19 pandemic to (safely) predict and observe how the virus might move through the workplace. Proactive MD uses the tool to simulate thousands of scenarios based on an employer’s unique profile and help them select the set of strategies best suited to meet their goals.
Each employer has unique needs to sustain their operation, reduce unpredictability and keep their employees safe.
Using these parameters, Proactive MD can create targets that the employer’s solution needs to hit. Using claims data to create a risk profile, and with key data points captured during a comprehensive back-to-work site assessment, the expert-led consulting team can then use ARCnet to simulate the effects of different strategies within five pillars shown to be effective at preventing the spread of COVID-19: social distancing, testing, contact tracing, isolation and treatment.
From there, Proactive MD’s expert-led consulting team — comprised of data science, medical, worksite assessment, business and compliance, legal and ethical experts — can provide recommendations tailored to each business and worksite. These recommendations will contain risk mitigation, facility controls, administrative controls, digital controls and primary care strategies. The team can then connect employers to Proactive MD resources or help assess other vendors.
“’Good enough’ is never good enough for Proactive MD,” says Jeremy Vanderknyff, PhD, executive vice president of health data science, value and validation. “By identifying the right strategies for that employer, we can scientifically create fully custom solutions for the employer to help them achieve their economic and moral responsibilities to their employees and customers.”
To discover how Proactive MD’s innovative solutions and commitment to employers and employees can serve your business in the face of a global pandemic, please visit https://proactive-md.com/.
