Central Maine Healthcare offers screening help so businesses can safely reopen

Photo / Maureen Milliken Central Maine Health's Maine Urgent Care Centers are overseeing a new Return to Work Screening program for businesses.

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By Maureen Milliken

As Central Maine Healthcare developed a process to screen for COVID-19 symptoms at its hospital and other sites, the Lewiston-based health care system began to get questions from the community about how that might work at other organizatons.

The result is the Return to Work Screening program that CMH has developed for businesses.

As the state sets guidelines for bringing people back to work and opening physical locations, CMH found that the screening it developed using Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines is a good model for businesses in general, said Melissa Caccamo, director of ambulatory and retail services for CMH.

CMH this morning conducted its first onsite screening training for a business, in Topsham. The program guides the business on how to set up a screening area, the steps for screening, equipment needed and guidelines for handling employees who screen positive.screen for COVID-19 symptoms.

"We started to get questions about when workers come back, what places of business could do to screen," Caccamo said. "People in the community would say, 'I wonder how we're going to do this with our place of business?"

That prompted the health care system, through its occupational health program, to take what was learned by doing screening at Central Maine Medical Center and the system's other sites, and look at general use. The Return to Work Screening program was developed over the last few weeks and is part of the occupational health offerings at the system's two Maine Urgent Care centers, in Topsham and Lewiston.

While the state's business reopening plan calls for screening, many businesses aren't sure how to do it, Caccamo said.

The program begins with an initial intake call to Debra Kiker, director of employee and occupational health at CMH.

"We ask about the type of business, how many employees, how many doors, how they interact with the public," Caccamo said. The onsite training lasts about an hour and includes a look at the building, what entrances would be used, how to set up one or more screening areas, a review of the questions that screeners must ask, temperature-taking and more. The plan is customized for a business and the type of employee and public traffic it has.

Screening questions follow those laid out by the CDC. "Things like, 'Do you have a cough?' or 'If you've had a cough, is it different in the past few days?'" she said.

The program doesn't involve actual testing for COVID-19. If a person screens positive, or answers yes to a number of the questions, they're asked to see a primary caregiver. They can also visit one of CMH's Maine Urgent Care centers, in Topsham and Lewiston, which are doing COVID-19 testing. The urgent care centers are set up for virtual visits, but also are open for physical ones.

The Topsham Maine Urgent Care Center opened last year, and the Lewiston center opened on March 25. The Return to Work screening program, which costs $225, fits well with the occupational health partnerships with businesses being developed with the care center program, Caccamo said.

"We don't know what could be coming in the next weeks and months, there are some unknown timeframes," she said. But the program is flexible and business partners can continue to work with CMH as guidelines change.

She said that one of the biggest concerns businesses have is how they can bring employees, and in many cases the public, back to their location safely. "We're excited to be partnering with the community on this," she said.