Big Tech Companies are Helping Employers Test Workers

As businesses continue to grapple with the question of how to reopen safely, a number of big tech names are stepping up and offering testing and contact tracing COVID services to employers.

Returning to work means rethinking a number of safety and health precautions, and companies are trying to figure out how to conduct testing, do contact tracing and enforce social distancing. Earlier this summer, however, a handful of big tech companies like Fitbit and Verily stepped up to provide companies with health-vetting, workforce tools.

Verily Life Sciences, a sister company of Google, worked quickly to introduce a free coronavirus-screening site for the public and set up testing location in March earlier this year. It took some time to work efficiently, but as of June (a whole two months ago), it had helped 220,000 people get testing in 13 states.

Since then, Verily has worked towards helping employers by introducing a health screening and analytics service for businesses trying to safely reopen during the pandemic. Earlier this year, Verily announced an app-based health screening service for businesses and schools called Healthy at Work.

The app provides COVID-19 diagnostic testing for employees and makes recommendations to employers about how often employees should be retested based on local health data and test results.

Employers are really focusing on how to ensure that they are not the source of another outbreak, said Dr. Vivian Lee, the president of health platforms at Verily, a unit of Googles parent company, Alphabet. And that they do not wind up in a situation where theyre putting the safety of their employees at risk when they need to be back in an office or a workplace setting.

Other big tech companies are following Verilys lead. For example, Microsoft and the larger insurer United Health Group recently collaborated on a free symptom-checking app that helps target workers at risk for the virus and recommend testing resources.

Read more:

Big Tech Companies are Helping Employers Test Workers - Occupational Health and Safety