The Problem: 

As of this week, global containment of Covid-19 has become unlikely, with well over 120,000 (1) cases reported in 100 countries according to the World Health Organization.  As of March 11, the W.H.O has declared this novel virus a global pandemic.  This will have a serious impact on everyone but is particularly problematic for medically compromised patients or the elderly in hospitals, outpatient medical facilities; emergency departments; skilled nursing facilities as well as residents in long term care and senior living communities.  There is also a significant risk to staff in all these care environments. 

In Washington, a local senior living home has had 22 deaths confirmed. If this senior community had been using location technology and contagion heat mapping to track all residents, staff, and visitors, it would have been possible to create heat maps of contagion and enabled proactive containment. 

In China, it is estimated that the mortality rate among those older than 80 is 15%. (2)   The CDC has said that seniors and those with heart disease, diabetes, kidney and lung disease are at higher risk. (2)   

Care Guidelines:

The Centers for disease control have published guidelines for long term care communities (3).  the CDC has suggested that long term care facilities and other healthcare organizations should monitor residents and restrict any with fever or respiratory symptoms, provide dedicated care teams for Covid-19 patients and provide training for infection prevention. In addition, it’s important to ensure employees clean their hands according to CDC guidelines, including before and after contact with anyone who has or is suspected of having Covid-19 and after contact with contaminated surfaces or equipment, and once again after removing personal protective equipment (PPE).

Those who are unwell should stay home, but what about the people who have the virus but are asymptomatic? The CDC has guidelines for testing those who have no symptoms, and are asymptomatic, but have been exposed to someone with Covid-19, but what if they don’t know or they find out after multiple points of contact?  

Containment Experts Weigh In: 

The World Health Organization (WHO) (4) has praised Singapore’s approach to containment as a model for other countries to follow.  They have tested every case of this influenza-like virus, and pneumonia and have followed up on every case, followed up with contacts for possible contagion to stop transmission.  The most important element has been the aggressive containment, contact tracing and targeted mitigation of risk (5) 

How Can Quake Help? 

Quake’s technology enables containment by isolating patients and residents within dedicated healthcare areas. Quakes solution can be used in all hospitals, skilled nursing, long term care and, senior living.

 
Best Practices Include: 

Tracing:

Documenting encounters with staff and patients can provide important information about contagion. Asymptomatic patients, residents or staff who become symptomatic can be traced to find each possible touchpoint including patients, staff or visitors while in the technology monitored facility. In addition to the ongoing cleaning or surfaces that occur in healthcare, any area that has housed a Covid-19 patient can be identified for additional cleaning to mitigate the risk of surface contamination to reduce risk to staff, residents or patients. 

This enables the facility to take the next step:

Containment & Mitigation:

Any facility or community can create containment zones to ensure the patients are within specific areas and ensure dedicated staff caring for them can provide the best possible care to avoid transmission of the virus.  In some communities, residents who are ill may be in memory or behavioral care and may not understand the need for containment. Those providing care for non-compliant patients can create alerts for those zones to stop unnecessary exposure and risk.   As an added benefit, Quake technology can be deployed rapidly and requires little infrastructure to start the solution to start tracing and containment. 
Quake Global’s simple monitoring technology can be used to assist hospitals, skilled nursing and senior living communities to trace contagion, contain contagion and help in mitigating the risk of the global spread of contagion.

We have the technology that powers your risk mitigation plan. Call Quake Global today.  

References: 
https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/07-03-2020-who-statement-on-cases-of-covid-19-surpassing-100-000
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/specific-groups/high-risk-complications.html
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/healthcare-facilities/prevent-spread-in-long-term-care-facilities.html
https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---9-march-2020
https://www.hawaiipublicradio.org/post/asia-minute-world-health-organization-praises-singapore-s-reaction-coronavirus#stream/0