JOSEPH A. ROUSE
WESTFIELD – The Massachusetts Department of Health is coordinating efforts to assist communities with COVID-19 contact tracing, a daunting task for Westfield, which had 247 positive cases as of April 20.
Gov. Charlie Baker announced the Community Tracing Collaborative earlier this month and said 1,000 individuals would be deployed through the program, including college students.
This initiative is a collaboration between the administration and Partners In Health, and is the first of its kind in the nation, according to Baker’s office. The initiative focuses on tracing the contacts of confirmed positive COVID-19 patients, and supporting individuals in quarantine, and builds on the efforts already underway from the Command Center to leverage public health college students to augment the contact tracing being done by local boards of health.
Last week, Westfield Health Director Joseph A. Rouse said the DPH has “really stepped up” its assistance to the city and he hoped Westfield would have at least one person helping trace city residents tested for coronavirus.
Rouse noted that a community tracer would not be paid through the city’s budget.
“This will all be funded by the state,” he said.
Rouse said the college students being deployed are fully engaged in their public health studies and would be assigned through the state.
“This will all be remote,” he noted.
Rouse and the city’s Board of Health are charged with all tracing of COVID-19 patients. With more than 200 city residents having tested positive, that is a lot of follow-up.
Currently, everyone who tests positive receives a call from Rouse’s team to track where they have been, who they came in contact with, etc. For someone who is still going to a workplace or not practicing social distancing for any reason, that could be a long list.
The person performing the patient tracing must compile the information and everyone on that list must be contacted.
“Enhanced contact tracing capability is another powerful tool for public health officials and health care providers in the battle against COVID-19,” said Baker in a press release. “Massachusetts is the only state in the nation implementing this type of programming, and this collaborative tracing initiative will break new ground as we work together to slow the spread of COVID-19.”
Partners In Health will provide staff and contribute technical expertise in community tracing. The Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority (CCA) will stand up a virtual support center and maintain connectivity, while the Massachusetts Department of Health will maintain data, guides and processes. Accenture, a leading global professional services company, and Salesforce, a global leader in CRM, are implementing support center capabilities for the CTC’s tracing purposes.
“This is a key effort in the Commonwealth’s work to slow the spread of the virus by adding capacity to reach individuals who have come in close contact with individuals are confirmed positive for COVID-19,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders in a release from Baker. “I encourage residents to cooperate with the operation so that we can further slow the spread of COVID-19 in Massachusetts.”
