Contact tracing has been successfully used by local and state health departments for decades. Now it’s an important strategy in preventing further spread of COVID-19. As communities work to scale up and train the workforce needed for this critical task, GSE Absolute stands ready to help.
We work with your staff to create a team of qualified contact tracers to call COVID-19 patients within 24 hours of a positive test result to compassionately and securely trace their movements and interactions, discretely reach out to those contacts, encourage those exposed to self-isolate, and direct them to resources within the community including testing. Contact tracers can start remotely then transition to a local health facility.
Johns Hopkins University researchers estimate the country will need at least 100,000 public health workers to handle contact tracing as the pandemic continues. Identifying good candidates with the right skills is a huge task, followed by an equally challenging one: properly training new hires for the job ahead.
Well-prepared contact tracers have a background in public health and/or skills that translate, including:
- Knowledge about patient confidentiality policies
- Proficiency with medical terms and principles of exposure, infection, infectious period, potentially infectious interactions, symptoms of disease, pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic infection
- Excellent interpersonal communication skills to build and maintain trust with patients and contacts
- Cultural sensitivity appropriate to your community
- Counseling skills to refer patients and contacts for further care if needed
- Proficiency with tracking and documenting data in contact tracing software
- Resourcefulness in locating patients and contacts who may be difficult to reach or reluctant to engage in conversation
The most successful efforts to fight coronavirus use widespread contact tracing. By quickly identifying contacts, those who might be infected can quarantine themselves and avoid spreading the virus to others.
For more information about our contact tracer contacts, please email Marc Samson at marc.samson@gses.com or call him at 561-756-2169.
