With the COVID-19 pandemic showing no signs of slowing down and its vaccine still underway, controlling the pandemic is the only way authorities and health organizations can prevent further infection and death. Public health experts are relying on a tried and true method of controlling a pandemic of this magnitude – contact tracing.
Contact Tracing
The contact tracing process is very similar to good old investigative work – asking an infected person about their close contacts and quickly reaching out to them with support and guidance. This process is very useful in preventing the spread of the virus.
However, to stall a pandemic of this magnitude, an army of contact tracers is needed. Therefore, local and state healthcare organizations are relying on contact tracing call centers.
Key Roles A Contact Tracing Call Center Can Play in The Battle Against Covid-19 Pandemic
A contact tracing call center can be a crucial aid in the war against Covid-19. With their training, experience, and expertise in the healthcare ecosystem, they can quickly deploy a team of contact tracers working round the clock to stop the spread of the virus. Some vital activities performed by a contact tracing call center are:
Patient Interview
Contact tracing agents can interview a large number of COVID-19 patients in a short time and obtain the information regarding who they came in contact during this infection period. Call centers with multilingual capabilities can also reach out to patients who speak a different language.
Contacting the Exposed Contacts
Using the information obtained from a patient, a contact tracing call center can quickly reach out to exposed individuals and inform them about the possibility of infection and provide them with the support and guidance they need. The contact tracers can educate them about the importance of self-isolation and 14 days’ quarantine.
Monitoring the Condition of the Exposed Contacts Regularly
The contact tracing call centers can also help the healthcare organizations regularly monitor the health condition of the exposed individuals. The contact tracers can check with these individuals at regular intervals via email, text, or calls to see if someone has developed the symptoms of COVID-19. In case of a symptom, they will advise them on their next course of action, which is testing.
What features can a Healthcare organization look for in a contact tracing call center?
To ensure a complete contact tracing success, healthcare organizations must choose the right call center for the process. Giving the vital task of contact tracing to an individual or a call center without the necessary expertise will fail the purpose. So, what features should a healthcare organization look for while choosing a contact tracing call center? Some of the key features are listed below:
Experience in the Healthcare Ecosystem
The ideal contact tracing partner for a healthcare organization would be a call center with expertise in the healthcare ecosystem. These contact centers have worked closely with different healthcare organizations and can handle the procedure well, ensuring quicker results.
Compliance
Adhering to healthcare industry compliances is an integral part of the job of a contact tracing call center. The call centers need to ensure that at no point in the interaction, a patient’s identity is revealed to others. A HIPAA compliant call center can do this job easily and more efficiently.
Training
Each agent of a contact tracing call center must undergo a rigorous contact tracing training. In addition to the contact tracing training, most contact tracing call centers also train their agents in other healthcare compliances such as HIPAA. It ensures better compliance and more effective execution of the contact tracing process.
Multilingual Capabilities
A contact tracing call center with multilingual capabilities is ideal for a contact tracing partner for healthcare organizations. Like any other pandemic, COVID-19 can affect any demographic. And therefore, to locate the patient and their exposed contacts and interact with them, healthcare organizations need to hire contact tracers who speak different languages. Around 45 languages are spoken in the US, and eight languages have over 1 million speakers each. To reach out to them, you need a contact tracing call center with multilingual capability.
A multilingual contact center can make the job easier. They can assign Spanish-speaking agents to interact with Hispanic patients, contacts, and English-speaking agents to native English speakers.
Multichannel Capabilities
In this digital age, people want to interact via their preferred mode of communication. So, a multichannel call center can easily reach out to the exposed contacts via several channels, ensuring quick contact tracing. A call center with voice, chat, and email support can easily reach out to the contacts and keep in touch with them.
For example – a contact tracing call center with multichannel capabilities can email the questionnaire to a COVID-19 patient and reach out to their exposed contacts via call or email. It can then regularly monitor the health condition of the exposed contacts via email or text.
Conclusion
In the current situation, healthcare organizations around the United States need more than a hundred thousand trained contact tracers who can quickly carry out the contact tracing process. With their expertise, experience, and compliance adherence, contact tracing call centers can make the job easier for the healthcare industry. Call centers with multilingual and multichannel capabilities can improve the efficacy and reach of contact tracing, ensuring better control over the spread of the virus.
