Better COVID-19 management for senior caregivers aim of collaboration

Posted on Nov. 13, 2020

Pacific Urban Resilience Lab

A new program designed to aid in proactively managing employees who test positive or may have been exposed to COVID-19 is available to organizations caring for kupuna. The Pacific Urban Resilience Lab (PURL) at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa has launched the program to help facilitate community-wide COVID-19 screening and management for employees of senior caregiving organizations. Interested senior-care organizations on Oʻahu may enroll in the program through November 30, 2020.

The program’s goals are to provide technology, management tools and training to organizations caring for Hawaiʻi’s kupuna and improve: rapid identification of COVID-19 exposures; communications between caregivers, employers and others; and support of contact tracing and risk management.

"COVID-19 will be with us for a long time and there will be other disease outbreaks. It is important that we as a community learn how technology and mobile apps can support preparedness and response to pandemics. We need to better understand what it takes to get people to use the technology. Our initial pilot has already led to improvements in the app for better usability with caregivers. With this expansion, we hope to share what we’ve learned with other senior care collaborators to expand the data and decision-making to protect our community.” -- Dr. Karl Kim, Executive Director of the Pacific Urban Resilience Lab and Executive Director of the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center.

To read the full news story, go to: https://www.hawaii.edu/news/2020/11/12/covid19-management-senior-caregivers/

Any organization serving seniors on the island of Oʻahu is eligible to participate and can learn more at the iHealthHome website.