It’s been a long year dealing with COVID-19 and it’s left all of us questioning whether or not going back to “normalcy” is anywhere near. What would normalcy even look like when we get there? In the last 12 months consumers have traded gym memberships for Peletons and cloth face coverings have become a standard offering at grocery stores. Is this the new normal?
The impact on established technology business has been profound too. Popular video-calling platform Zoom’s stock grew by over 300% in 2020. E-learning start-up SkillShare raised $66 Million as people began learning from home. Fintech company Checkout had a year of massive growth and almost doubled their number of employees.
In startupland, COVID has provided exponential growth opportunities in some areas.
Digital health startup CareValidate was founded in Atlanta, GA in 2018 by John Hayde and Jiten Chhabra. John Hayde brought over two decades of experience in safety tech and to the company while Dr. Jiten Chhabra provided clinical insights into infectious disease management as the company’s Chief Medical Officer.
This unique blend gave rise to CareValidate’s original product－CareFeed. CareFeed provides a private way for those providing care to seniors to share posts with family members. The solution consists of the CareFeed app, often used in conjunction with medical wearables, that track individuals’ heart rate, respiration rate, daily step count, indoor movement, room presence, sleep quality metrics and their proximity to other individuals. This led to the development of Care360 when the pandemic started.
Care360 helps employees to return to the workplace safely and mitigates the spread of COVID-19 with the help of proximity analytics. Utilizing Bluetooth technology badges, employees can know if they were exposed to a COVID-19 case at work. In addition to the app and wearable for employees, Care360 consists of a dashboard which provides employers with everything they need to keep their employees safe. The user experience within the employee app begins with daily health checks and an updated ‘passport’ system. The digital passport either orange or green confirms whether or not a staff member has reported signs or symptoms, has been in direct contact with another staff member who has tested positive or may have a case for COVID-19 and reduces the unknown spread of COVID-19 to other employees. With the development of various COVID-19 vaccines, employers can additionally choose to add vaccine tracking into the app.
With changing state laws notification procedures have been immensely important to returning to work during the pandemic. In addition to these daily health checks, the Care360 software provides employers with automated COVID-19 communication. This automatic communication means several things for employers and employees.
1. It ensures that employees are kept informed about potential COVID-19 cases and their potential exposure to anyone who tests positive for COVID-19.
2. It makes sure that employers are compliant with all laws and regulations surrounding COVID-19 in the workplace.
Laws such as California’s AB-685 require employers to inform employees, and in some cases, unions and local health departments, of any positive COVID-19 cases within 24 hours. For large companies, such quick and thorough communication can prove very difficult. Therefore, integrated communication protects companies from unnecessary Occupational and Safety Health Association fines whilst also reducing the time between infection and isolation, hence reducing the reproductive number of the SARS-CoV2 virus and the spread of COVID-19.
Care360 further offers complete employee training to ensure the proper implementation of COVID-19 safety procedures and provides integrated, at home testing for those who need it.
While Care360 was designed specifically for infectious disease response and prevention in the workplace, it was based on a software and product design built to solve a different problem in the seniorcare industry.
CareValidate’s story is one of the versatility of tech to respond to an ever-changing world. In CareValidate’s case, this versatility allowed the company to quickly expand and provide a comprehensive, return-to-work solution based entirely on their expertise with Bluetooth Low Energy proximity technology and medical grade wearables. An expertise that was previously confined to a relatively niche area of health and seniorcare insurance was suddenly applicable to every employer and employee on the planet. The fast-paced nature of the tech meant that CareValidate, and countless other companies around the world, were able to provide people with the solutions needed to make life during a global pandemic on the path to some semblance of normalcy.
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