COVID-19 Corps Contact-Tracing Lead Looks Back at Impact
Former COVID-19 Corps member Adebola Hassan, MPH, recently wrapped up an assignment for the CDC Foundation supporting the Lake County Health Department as a lead case investigator and contract tracer for their Communicable Disease program. Previously in her career, she acted as a UNICEF Child Health specialist in her home country of Nigeria. She wrote this blog post to share her thoughts on the experience and her pride at the innovations and creative thinking shown by her team in Illinois:
Every day, our contact tracing team at the Lake County Health Department encountered a variety of responses from individuals, as we did our best to connect with our assigned cases and contacts, while putting both our empathy and interview skills to the best use. Sometimes, we were the ones to break the news of a positive COVID test result. On other calls, we were the listening ear for that lonely elderly citizen, and often, we had to address complicated situations.
While some community members genuinely appreciated our efforts, others were understandably upset by these calls. Others only rehashed what they thought we wanted to hear.
The continuing surges in the pandemic not only increased the number of COVID-positive clients that had to be contacted with isolation instructions, but also greatly expanded the number of contacts who had been exposed to the disease and who had to be reached to receive guidance on quarantine. As cases spiked, it became impossible for us to make all the necessary phone calls.
We accomplished these successes by staying motivated by the good we were adding to our community.
Of course, challenges come with their good side too, making us think deeply about how processes can be improved. As we struggled to keep up with these calls, a solution came to us during a team huddle. “Why can’t we send messages to contacts in addition to calling them?” It was possible! We could inform those people that they’d been exposed and need to quarantine, with a link to all the information they would need and a number to call if they still needed more.
There were also adaptive solutions in other areas. We conveyed to our Spanish-speaking clients that we’d refer them to a language-appropriate contact tracer as soon as possible, and we were also able to follow up with cases and contacts who were behind in reporting their symptom updates back to the health department.
It was a crazy period, but we accomplished these successes by staying motivated by the good we were adding to our community.
I’m proud my team was able to contribute something meaningful to the Lake County Health Department’s operational strategies and proud to work with a team that brought so many great ideas to our huddles.
Together, everyone achieves more.
This blog post is supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award totaling $45,939,536 with 100 percent funded by CDC/HHS. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement by, CDC/HHS or the U.S. Government.
