[MCOH-EH] Temperature screening of employees

[Wendland, Douglas]

We are not under CMS requirements, but our State Dept. of Health had a similar requirement that was rescinded within the past few months.  Temperature screening is completely ineffective.  CDC data from airport screening during the Ebola outbreak showed zero sensitivity and zero specificity.  There has been a similar experience with temperature screening for COVID-19 with primarily false positive screens and few, if any true positive screens.  We have been relying on education on COVID-19 symptoms, high risk contacts, and early self-reporting and testing.  I think that that is about the best that can be done to try to keep infected employees out of the workplace.  I believe that CDC has also dropped the recommendation for temperature screening.

Douglas M Wendland, MD, MPH
St. Luke's Occupational Medicine

From: MCOH-EH <mcoh-eh-bounces at mylist.net> On Behalf Of Radke, Laura L. M.D.
Sent: Friday, February 26, 2021 9:44 AM
To: 'MCOH-EH' <mcoh-eh at mylist.net>
Subject: [MCOH-EH] Temperature screening of employees


CAUTION: External Sender - This email originated from outside of St. Luke's.
Please do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.
Based on CMS standards, we have been performing temperature screening for our staff daily at the entrances to all of our facilities.  None of those involved in putting this in place feel strongly that it provides any useful information.  Wondering how the rest of you are handling this and if there has been any interaction with CMS recently about whether we could remove temperature screening and just do symptom surveys daily, particularly since we have now been able to vaccinate the majority of our staff.  We have an app that employees use to get clearance and show the result when they enter daily, and would plan to keep that in place indefinitely.  Temperature screening slows down the process and is a major dissatisfier, particularly at shift changes.

Appreciate your responses and insight!

Laura L Radke, MD
Medical Director, F&MCW Occupational Health Services
Phone:  262-253-8197  | Fax:  262-253-5152 Cell Phone:  414-530-0723
E-mail: laura.radke at froedtert.com<mailto:laura.radke at froedtert.com>

Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin Workforce Health / North Hills Health Center Building B First Floor
W129 N7055 Northfield Dr.
Menomonee Falls, WI 53051


______________________________________________________________________
Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message, including any attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message.
______________________________________________________________________
This St. Luke's communication is intended for the use of the person or entity to whom it is addressed and may contain information that is privileged and confidential, the disclosure of which is governed by applicable law.  If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, or the employee or agent responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this information is prohibited.  If you have received this message in error, please notify sender immediately
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mylist.net/archives/mcoh-eh/attachments/20210226/ebd10b7c/attachment-0001.htm>