[MCOH-EH] COVID-19 symptom screening in pediatric hospitals

Delclos, George George.Delclos at uth.tmc.edu
Thu May 27 13:37:16 PDT 2021


Dear colleagues,

I am part of the employee health program at our main pediatric hospital in the Texas Medical Center in Houston, and am looking for some examples of what other pediatric hospitals (although not limited to these) are doing regarding symptom screening of visitors, patients and employees at entry into our facilities.

As masks are coming off, my Infection Control colleagues are telling me that it is extremely likely that the incidence of non-COVID viral respiratory infections will rise (as is apparently happening in some parts of the country, even though we are not in "RSV season."  RSV, influenza and other respiratory illnesses can cause most of the same symptoms as COVID (except, perhaps, loss of taste/smell, which is less common). Thus, as we apply our COVID symptom screening questions to vaccinated individuals, the majority of "positives" will be "false positive" for COVID. Not sure how to best handle these scenarios. It would be nice if employees  (or parents or visitors) with any potentially contagious illness did not come to work, but this is not how we handled this in the pre-COVID19 era. Will we require these employees to get tested for COVID even though they have been vaccinated? How are you all handling the revamping of screening procedures?


Looking forward to your insights and hearing about your experience.

Thanks!
George.

George L. Delclos, MD, MPH, PhD
Consulting Medical Director, Texas Children's Hospital
Medical Director, UT Health Services
Professor
Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics and Environmental Sciences
Associate Director, Occupational and Environmental Medicine Residency Program
The University of Texas School of Public Health
P.O. Box 20186
Houston, Texas 77225-0186
Phone:   713 500 9459
FAX:        713 500 9442
Email:     George.Delclos at uth.tmc.edu<mailto:George.Delclos at uth.tmc.edu>

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