A safe return to offices requires the best technology

Now that most states, including Mexico City, have transitioned to the Orange epidemiological traffic light, companies will be able to gradually reopen their workplaces. However, many employees may be afraid to return until there is a ready and approved vaccine.

While some companies have considered allowing certain employees to continue remote work even with the new normal, for those who need to return to the office, ensuring a safe return is essential. Therefore, it is a good time to review the priorities for mitigating the risk of infections or outbreaks.

Firstly, it is crucial to follow all official recommendations such as maintaining social distance, using face masks, handwashing, using hand sanitizer, and sanitizing work areas, among others.

While there are general recommendations like those issued by the Slim Foundation https://www.clikisalud.net/covid-19/I believe it is essential for each organization to design its own customized protocols and processes, aligned with the technological solutions designed to support them.

In this process, it is vital to ensure that employees feel safe and confident in returning to the office. One way to achieve this is through self-assessments of symptoms and lifestyle for them and their families, using tools like a digital medical history, which can check if they are vulnerable individuals, their possibilities of infection based on recent contact with infected people, and possible COVID-related symptoms.

Similarly, the use of digital devices to measure temperature, blood pressure, and oxygen saturation in real-time will allow us to quickly determine the level of risk, from low to very high, for each person, to initiate prevention or care activities promptly.

Following the self-assessment process, it is of utmost importance to conduct clinical evaluations of employees identified with high or very high riskby healthcare professionals at on-site medical attention modules, where the following will be performed:

On the other hand, facility management is of utmost importance, and in this area, there are also technologies that will help us in prevention and data management to make important decisions that will allow us to identify infected individuals, such as the use of thermal cameras to measure temperature and sensors to count the number of people entering certain areas. It also allows us to track and monitor the use of specific areas such as meeting rooms or storage places.

Furthermore, to reduce the possibility of massive virus outbreaks, employees entering the facilities can be provided with a tracking tool within an app, which will generate a history of contacts and interactions they had with other employees, allowing tracing of possibly infected individuals.

Likewise, the analysis and use of all collected data are essential to support the corresponding departments in the decision-making process, in order to maintain the optimal health of employees and ensure the operational continuity of the organization.

Finally, for all employees sent home either due to a high likelihood of having contracted the virus or because they have already contracted it, they can be remotely attended to by healthcare professionals using teleconsultation solutions and monitored with digital devices that can measure temperature, blood pressure, and oxygen saturation in real-time, connected through Bluetooth to an app.

If you want to learn more about the technologies to help companies in a safe and secure return to offices, I invite you to explore the comprehensive solutions we have developed at Global Hitss to take care of the health of your employees and ensure the operational continuity of your business.