To check and protect: COVID-19 screenings for your workforce

To check and protect: COVID-19 screenings for your workforce

As staff return to the workplace, reintegration can cause anxiety and uncertainty for employers and employees alike. Employees may feel anxious about their own health status and that of their colleagues, and about the potential risks to themselves and their families. COVID-19 pre-screening services with Registered Nurses can help provide reassurance while mitigating the risk of asymptomatic or low-symptomatic people entering the worksite.

Lifemark offers multiple services to help you provide physical safety and psychological support, including daily onsite screenings, safety risk assessments and return to work pre-screenings, to name a few.

Individual return-to-work assessments

Need help figuring out who needs to continue self-isolating and/or working from home and who can safely return to work? This one-on-one phone assessment can help you do that — and offer employees peace of mind around their de-isolation. A 15-minute conversation with a Registered Nurse helps them understand personal risks, addresses their concerns about safety in the workplace and educates them about safety procedures. These private conversations are a powerful tool that enable you to more efficiently reopen your business and bring remote workers back onsite safely and with minimal anxiety.

Pre-shift screening

Available by phone or onsite, this quick daily screening has employees answer questions to identify symptoms and risk factors (i.e. shortness of breath, exposure to someone with COVID symptoms or recent travel). A list of any positive screens is provided to the employer along with details on next steps in accordance with Public Health Agency of Canada guidelines.

Phone support

A hotline staffed by Registered Nurses is available to employees who have questions or concerns about symptoms, potential exposure, protocols around working safely with others, related mental health challenges and more. This medical support can be provided in 15-minute time slots so employees receive the personal, confidential help they need.

On-site screening

Add an extra layer of security by having employees go through a screening checkpoint before entering the building. A Registered Nurse will be on hand to ask screening questions, take their temperature with an infrared forehead thermometer, and either clear them for safe entry or recommend they return home and/or get medical attention.

Serological antibody tests

When these Point of Care tests are approved by Health Canada, Lifemark will be making them available to employers. The test will be done on-site, using a finger prick method to collect a blood sample. It detects both IgM antibodies (early antibodies that are the first indication of a body's response to infection) and an IgG (antibodies that can be detected 14 days after a person has been infected with COVID-19). Results will be available in minutes and Registered Nurses will be on hand to educate the employee and answer their questions about the results.

These tests won't help identify people more recently infected, nor should they be considered a diagnostic tool for COVID-19, but they can be a valuable way of identifying vulnerable employees, seeing who is at risk of infection, and demonstrating to employees that their health and safety is a high priority for your company.

On-site flu immunization clinics can also help keep your workforce healthy and reassured. While current vaccines don't protect against COVID-19, they do keep our health care system from being overwhelmed with seasonal influenza cases and can prevent people from being hit by the "double whammy" of influenza and COVID-19, a co-morbidity that has been proven possible.

Find out more about the benefits of hosting an on-site flu clinic at your workplace.

As your employees return to work, show them you're doing everything you can to keep them safe. Contact us to find out more about COVID screening services, onsite flu clinics and more.