Health Check Tracker

Brief

Please note that the use of the free version for commercial/ corporate purposes violates our terms of use. This version of the tool is only intended for personal purposes. For corporate use of this tool, kindly refer to our commercial version.

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As social distancing measures begin to loosen and businesses are permitted to reopen, the responsibility of limiting the spread of COVID-19 falls to all members of society. For business owners and managers who are struggling with normal operations, the added burden of paying close attention to COVID-19 related symptoms in their workforce can be quite taxing on their already limited resources. Therefore, GPetrium has created the Health Check Tracker, an excel solution that monitors voluntarily released information on personnel’s symptoms to help managers and business owners make decisions on sick leave, health risks based on occupation and department.

The information gathered helps organizations to properly manage the allocation of PPE and further organizational policies based on health risks identified. Part of the tool also promotes COVID-19 related information from major sources to assist business owners and managers to keep themselves informed.

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Inherently, this tool is not designed to pry on the private lives of employees or to single handily stop the spread of COVID-19. It is meant to assist managers and business owners to reach informed decisions. GPetrium recommends that managers discuss the use of the tool with their teams and reinforce that the information shared is voluntary but of utmost importance to assist businesses’ ability to swiftly combat the spread of the disease and ensure the safety of the entire team.

Proactively monitoring and isolating cases at an organizational level will help decrease the spread and contamination of COVID-19. This will reduce the risk to family members, work colleagues, consumers, unaware by passers, and society at large. Additionally, preventative measures such as monitoring and control can augment an organization’s capacity to take quick action and, therefore, reduce the risk of organizational paralysis posed by a superspreading event or an unaware co-worker who came back to work sick.

When reducing contamination risks becomes an organizational priority, it is important to understand the risks of contamination associated with each department and occupation within the organization, as well as the industry. For example, employees with client facing roles may be at a higher risk than others, therefore closer monitoring, enhanced training and PPE may be necessary to prevent the spread and ensure quicker response times.

When organizations have the tools available to monitor and control, their partnership with relevant authorities will allow for better access to invaluable data that can help determine the actions that need to be taken, allowing for a faster response and quicker return to normal.

What is the GPetrium’s Health Checker?

GPetrium’s Health Check Tracker is a free excel tool that facilitates the monitoring of personnel symptoms to limit the spread of COVID-19 and fuel data driven decision making. The tool is designed to track voluntarily released information to support the response to health concerns in departments and the organization at large. It features a dashboard to help guide organizational decisions at the executive level.

The tool is divided into 5 key tabs: ‘Home’, ‘Dashboard’, ‘Database’, ‘Risk Classifier’, and ‘Guide’. ‘Home’ is an area where organizations are expected to list COVID-19 related information from trustworthy sources to support the organization’s operations and combat the spread of misinformation. The ‘Dashboard’ tab segment provides insight on key variables impacting the overall organization based on information inputted in the ‘Database’ tab. The ‘Database’ section keeps an itemized control of all the voluntarily reported instances of symptoms by employees. The ‘Risk Classifier’ segment is used to determine the risk exposure level of key occupations and departments to support further insight on the health impact to the organization. Finally, the ‘Guide’ tab covers tips from GPetrium on data error, tool personalization, and how the information on the tool can augment decision making.

‘Home’ tab

The information on this segment can be personalized according to the team’s geographical location.

Sources – A list of major sources populated by the organization to support the management and dissemination of truthful and relevant information.
Key Guidelines – A list of key guidelines built by the organization based on governmental and managerial orientation. The links in this segment should lead to internal information and guidelines.
Preventions – List of preventive actions that everyone needs to follow to limit risk of contagion.
Available Employer Resource –This is a curated list of information that is relevant to employers that should be built based on geographical location. The list can encompass information on economic relief measures that can assist the business staying afloat (for example, Canada and the US provided resources to support local businesses in this environment).
Available Employee Resource – Employees may need resources to determine what is the best course of action in case a health or COVID-19 related issue arises (For example, Canada created the CERB program and extended EI coverage to support employees that may have been impacted by the current situation).
Available Customer Resource – Front-end employees may need additional resources to guide the communication with customers on COVID-19 related matters. (For example, on informing how relevant policies changed in light of the current situation or how to politely ask that safe distancing is practiced while traversing across the store).

‘Dashboard’ tab

Total Reports – Totals the number of row items in the ‘Database’ (slicer settings may impact these numbers).
Avg # of Symptoms Reported – Averages out the number of symptoms in column T of the ‘Database’ (slicer settings may impact these numbers).
Most Impacted Occupation – Determines which occupation has the highest number of reported symptoms as per column F of the ‘Database’ tab (slicer settings may impact these numbers).
Most Impacted Department – Determines which department has the highest number of reported symptoms as per column H of the ‘Database’ tab (slicer settings may impact these numbers).
# of Symptomatic Cases Over Period – A view of the number of reports throughout a predetermined time period. Slicers allows you to dig into the information as needed. Spikes in number of symptomatic reports may require further digging.
# of Cases to Risk Exposure Level – Provides a view of the number of cases per risk exposure. Knowing risk exposure and changes to the number of cases can help determine how to best allocate resources to support the workforce.
Slicers (Date, Occupation, # of Symptoms, Risk Exposure Level, (14d<) Prior Symptoms, Tested? and Results] – Better understand and monitor the health of the organization or department by digging into the visualizations with these slicers.
Most Common Symptoms – Insight into the most common symptoms. Alongside other graphs, this visualization will help to determine potential causes, helping to reach the best course of action.
# of Personnel per Occupation Impacted – Graphical view of the number of personnel impacted by a health issue that has been listed on the tool. A spike in cases to a certain occupation may lead to a review and change to the current processes. Slicers allows you to dig into the information as needed.

‘Database’ tab

There are currently 26 columns that can be populated into the database. Three columns are set-up to auto-populate according to the data inputted into other columns. Below we will look at each column:

ID – Unique identifier to facilitate the sharing of data while considering privacy and cybersecurity policies.
Date – Date that report was added to the database. Format DD-MM-YYYY needs to be kept the same throughout the database to limit Excel related errors and inconsistencies.
Name – Name of individual impacted by the health-related matter. Alias or numbers may be used depending on data privacy laws.
Occupation – A drop-down list of occupation tied to the individual case being analyzed. Occupations should be added to the ‘Risk Classifier’ tab to ensure it appears in the drop-down list and it also serves to fill-out the Risk Exposure Level and Department tables.
Risk Exposure Level – An auto-populated column based on the occupations listed in the information filled out in the ‘Risk Classifier’ tab.
Department – An auto-populated column based on the occupation listed in the row and the information filled out in the ‘Risk Classifier’ tab. This segment may be manually inputted in cases where one occupation can be found in multiple departments. Another option is to name the occupation with a unique identifier that falls under the relevant department.
Tested? – Has the individual who reported the symptom been tested for COVID-19? Drop-down menu for yes or no.
Results – A drop-down with ‘Positive’, ‘Negative’ and ‘Inconclusive’ to determine the results of the previous column “Tested?”.
Symptoms related columns – Fever>100.4F (38C), Felt Feverish, Chills, Tiredness, Dry Cough, Muscles Aches, Cough, Sore Throat, and Headache. These are all drop-down options that should be marked as “[X]” in case an applicable symptom is reported.
# of Symptoms – Auto-populated summation of all the marked [X] symptoms listed in the row.
Action – Drop-down list of actions that the management team or operator of the tool did in light of the report. Several actions can be taken including: continued observation, recommended for sick day, recommended for quarantine for 14 or 21 days, or any other pre-determined set of actions that may occur.
Symptoms reported in the last 14 days? – A Yes or No question to determine whether someone has already been logged into the system within the past X days (14d in our example). This column can help limit the risk of double-counting when analyzing the data in the ‘Dashboard’.
Did Someone Test Positive within the last 21 days? – This subsegment aims to gather additional information should the reported instance escalate into a positive COVID-19 case in the future. It is important to remember that this information is released voluntarily but it can help support containment efforts. This segment aims to know if the reporter knows of a family member, work colleague, supplier, or customer who has contracted COVID-19.
Comment – free text cell to input any additional information relevant to the report.

‘Risk Classifier’ tab

This tab helps to auto-populate and sometimes configure the drop-down list for the data in the ‘Database Tab’. If you would like to decrease or increase the number of options in the config tab, you will need to change the Data Validation for that column. For more information on how to do it, please refer to the Q&A section.

Departmental Information – To be filled with occupation title, department name, and the risk exposure level of the occupation. In order to properly assess the exposure level based on occupation, we recommend that relevant personnel read the information provided on column H26.
Risk Exposure Level – List of exposure level used in case column F in the database is expected to be manually inputted. It is a drop-down list with the options Low, Medium, High and Very High.
Symptoms – List of symptoms used to determine whether a person may have COVID-19 related symptoms based upon WHO and CDC guidelines.
Response – List used to fill in whether someone had a symptom or not in the database.
Tested – List used to fill whether someone has been tested positive for COVID-19.
Results – A list used to fill the results that came out of the test.
Action – A list of actions that the organization takes following a reported instance.

‘Guide’ tab

Double Counting Same Employee/ Patient in Dashboards

There are cases where the same individual may report symptoms for multiple days, leading to additional data being added to the tool. To avoid potentially double counting the same person in the dashboard, GPetrium added a slicer called ‘(14d<) Prior Symp Report’ which is based upon the ‘Symptoms reported in the last 14 days?’ column in the Database. By filling that row with a Yes/ No, Dashboard users will be able to filter out cases coming from the same source within a time period. The number of days to be accounted for can be changed from 14d to whichever metric the organization prefers.

Refreshing Data

To avoid running the risk of looking at old data even though it may have already been added to the database, it is essential for Dashboard users to always refresh the data by going to ‘Data->Refresh All’.

The Drivers of a Successful Health Check Tracker

The tool’s power comes from 3 major segments: (1) Data Governance, (2) Transparency, and (3) Dashboard Slicers

(1) Good data governance comes from managing the availability, usability, integrity and security of the data in the tool. It ensures that what is in it is truthful to drive better decision making.

(2) Transparency is required from all parties to ensure better decision making fueled by truthful information. Transparency also starts with clear policies for health related issues, sharing of symptoms between individuals and the organizational.

(3) Dashboard slicers provides organizations with the means to dig into segments of the data to gain a better understanding of what may or may not be happening. The dashboards alone may paint a dim picture of the current state of affairs, however, when digging into the current month or into certain departments, it may become clear that prior policy implementations have helped flatten the curve and reduce potential organizational disruption.”

Correlation <> Causation

Don’t forget, correlation DOES NOT imply causation. Even when the tool may be pointing to a certain direction, it is important to remember that it is static and cannot account for other factors you as the stakeholder may be privy to. The tool cannot fully account for changes in behavior that may enhance or inhibit better health outcomes.

Conclusion

A good Health Check Tracker is essential to manage potential contagions in an organization while giving leaders with the necessary data-driven tools to drive insightful decision making. The GPetrium Health Check Tracker in Excel provides a baseline for clients of all sizes to manage the health of its personnel, gain insight on the data and potentially support their respective governments in the fight against a public health crisis that is impacting everyone directly or indirectly. If you have questions or inquiries, please e-mail us at [email protected]

Q&A

Q: I have updated the dataset, unfortunately the Dashboard did not update. What do I do?

A: To maximize cybersecurity, the team did not use VBA/ macros for the solution. Therefore, in order to update the dashboard, you will need to go to ‘Data->Refresh All’.

Q: I tried to add a new drop-down item to the [Title] Config tab, unfortunately, it does not appear on the Sales Data.

A: The drop-down system is based on the ‘Data Validation’ excel feature, it restricts the entries based on a subset of cells that have been chosen. To recalibrate, you will need to choose all cells in that respective column then on the access toolbar go to ‘Data->Data Validation->Settings’ and change the Source to cover all the items you expect to have on the drop-down.