Australian hospitals and aged care facilities need swift contact tracing protocols in place as threat of COVID 19 community transmission increases.

●      Dr Norman Swan asks if Australian hospitals have “got their act together”

●      Outbreaks in high-risk healthcare facilities are “unacceptable” 

●      Bluetooth wearable card system Contact Harald could minimise staff disruptions

in last week's Coronacast, Dr Norman Swan questioned if all Australian hospitals have “got their act together” in terms of infection control and if they have “things in place should they start to get community spread of the virus and protocols there”. Dr Swan also commented that Victorian hospitals appear to have come “late to the party”.

Effective contract tracing is one common hurdle that will affect all public and private hospitals – and other healthcare services such as aged care facilities - in being able to maintain adequate staffing levels should community transmission of COVID-19 start to ramp up in states and territories beyond Victoria.

Contact Harald is a locally developed wearable contact tracing system designed to enhance and speed up local-initiated contact tracing efforts. It takes the initial “manual” out of manual tracing efforts.  

Healthcare facilities of all sizes will need to have ready-to-implement systems in place to limit disruption and ensure they have staff available for duty - not stood down if deemed a “potential contact” - should cases of COVID-19 be detected within these high-risk workplaces.

 As Dr Swan said, cases in hospitals were totally unacceptable because they are a high-risk environment.

“Tracking and tracing is the primary way to help control and minimise the impact of outbreaks,” said Melbourne-based Elissa Reid, Head of Product and Health for Contact Harald.

“With hospital and aged care workers among the current recent infection numbers in Victoria, including healthcare staff at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, it’s important that the industry stays vigilant,” said Ms Reid.

“With “close contacts” of positive cases also required to quarantine for 14 days, this could have disastrous effects for hospitals and aged care facilities, leaving them struggling to roster trained staff to provide uninterrupted essential health services,” says Ms Reid.

“We developed Contact Harald to help minimise the risk to business continuity – and healthcare environments have been the focus of our initial system development.”  

While the striking green Contact Harald cards cannot prevent an infection, what they do is dramatically speed up the essential task of contact tracing, once it has entered a community. 

‘We are ready to help healthcare facilities conduct a trial of our system, so they are ready to provide a best practice protocol for contact tracing needs – be it COVID-19 or other highly contagious communicable diseases,” said Ms Reid.

“Speed and privacy are of the utmost importance.  When any potential new case of a transmissible disease is identified, memory-based recall can prove problematic.  

“When Contact Harald is in use in a facility, anyone who has tested positive can have their card data uploaded at the facility to identify those staff, patients and families, visitors and others entering a facility have come in contact with, and send SMS and email alerts as needed,” Ms Reid said.  

Contact Harald is currently conducting trials of its contact tracing technology in health and aged care settings in Australia and overseas markets. To learn more or to register your interest in contact tracing trial go to www.contactharald.com