In response to the COVID-19 crisis, organisations have been forced to overhaul their health assessment procedures. While infectious disease has always presented risk to workplaces, a pandemic level emergency has forcefully disrupted working practices. One particularly common example of this change is the need for workplace health assessments. The need to identify any potentially contagious individuals prior to their working and possible infection of others is crucial in any organisation. While this has always been the case, the COVID-19 health crisis has reiterated this in dramatic fashion.

The Need for Assessment

As some semblance of normality returns to the Australian workforce, many organisations are implementing workplace health assessments. Besides preventing an internal outbreak within the company, this action is part of a civil responsibility shared by all. Significant variety in the format of health assessments is common though – and this is creating substantial discrepancy in their effectiveness and implications:

Workplace Health Assessments

As a precaution, many organisations have already installed health assessments to help keep their employees safe in the event of an outbreak within a community or worksite. One global mining giant has set up tents at airports, where employees have their temperature taken before flying out to worksites. Upon arrival, another health assessment is conducted. These processes are not only arduous, but often involve sharing pens and paper amongst staff members. The unhygienic elements of the process would seem to categorise it as more of a ‘check the boxes’ exercise than one that is truly committed to the protection of staff’s health.

SafetyIQ Remote Worker Safety Management has a functionality that allows employees to complete a health assessment online through their phone. Moving the health assessment to an online format nullifies the need to share physical documents, stationery or any other communal devices. Digital centralisation of data is indisputably more efficient and manageable for supervisors.

Streamlining Efficiency

An essential element of the SafetyIQ health assessment functionality is the capture of users’ locations upon their completion of the assessment. In times of a health crisis, this is an absolutely crucial feature. Should any individual test positive, knowing where they were when that result was taken is absolutely vital to the containment process. If this result were to be taken at a fly in fly out airport, those who were around the respondent could be instructed to isolate – preventing any further possible infection.

Online medical/health assessments provide organisations with an effective monitoring system to comprehensively take charge of a workforce’s safety. Being able to identify any possibly infectious individual and their specific location is integral to the safety of the broader workforce and indeed any rural centres that personnel may be travelling through. Pen and paper and other manual alternatives don’t provide this potential for proactive containment.

For more information on the utility of online medical/health assessments and how they can benefit your organisation, reach out to the team at SafetyIQ.