By: Fred Goldstein and Nick van Terheyden, MD

A lot of companies are operating during the COVID pandemic in a way they feel comfortable, based upon doing their own research and following the guidelines and recommendations they have identified. While this may seem like a sound strategy, we have seen and learned that many times this is not enough.

A Recent Example

I’ll discuss an example that occurred during a recent visit to get my haircut (we have seen both simple and complex issues in all of our work).  This was the second visit to a new place as I would not go back to my original hair cutter given their safety procedures were too far off the mark.

At the new one, I saw in the back where they were shampooing my hair that the vent to the ceiling AC system was closed, reducing airflow.  I also saw that one employee had lowered their face-covering whenever they walked away from people.

During my haircut, the owner and I got into a discussion about the Coronavirus.  He had reviewed materials from the hair salon group about operating and was very please that he had been recommended in the local press as a safe place to go.  I then brought up:

• the need to reopen the closed AC vent in the back reducing airflow and said perhaps placing a HEPA filter might help as well.
• the employee who was removing their face covering and the need to wear it at all times, and added,
• “perhaps you may want to open the front door to increase airflow.”  To which he immediately said to one of the other employees “Would you please open the front door and leave it open, it’s a pretty day out there.”

While these are simple examples, they are all ways to mitigate the risk that he had not put in place. Each company is different and understanding their unique circumstances is critical to this work.

Why You Should Consider Outside Advisors

Here are five important reasons why bringing in some outside expertise can help you reopen safer:

1. It provides input from experts who have been and are helping others, companies like yours, and some that are different.
2. You need a broad knowledge base – Operating in this pandemic requires knowledge of health, operations, epidemiology, population health, facilities, behavior change, finance, medicine, and many other areas.  Can you really understand all of them?
3. It’s a rapidly changing world – Knowledge of the virus and how it spreads, testing, screening, quarantine, and isolation are all changing rapidly, can you keep up?
4. Each company is unique from their industry, location, workspace, employees, customers, culture, knowing how all of these interact, and creating a custom plan is important.
5. Without that external perspective it can be easy to become blinkered and miss issues that arise – if everyone is drinking the same Koolaid your risk of missing things rises

Does it make a difference?

We have been working closely with St. Edward’s University in Austin, TX since the end of May.  Here is what their local public health department said of their plan to reopen and operate.

https://youtu.be/Q-43Hw5kP78

Our team of Luis Saldana, MD, Nick van Terheyden, MD, Doug Goldstein, Fred Goldstein, and others are available to work with you.  This can be as simple as a phone call consult or a deeply integrated engagement with your company. If you’d like more information about how we can help you, contact us at 904-613-1224 or via the contact page on this website.  You can also go to http://safehealthywork.com/.