Greenlight’s Swiss Cheese Pandemic Model of Defense
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage on, the operations of small businesses and schools have been disrupted. At Greenlight, we offer tools and practices that minimize risk of COVID-19 transmission by creating many layers of defense that protect operating facilities and their communities. You can visualize these layers of defense as Swiss cheese slices. Like a Swiss cheese slice, no single layer of protection is perfect and has some holes in it. However, when we stack these efforts together, similar to slices of Swiss cheese, we become better protected against COVID-19 infection . When you implement any one of the myriad of prevention strategies Greenlight offers, you create a more effective and safe environment for your operations to flourish.
Individual Prevention Strategies
Individual prevention strategies, our first line of defense, such as universal masking, physical distancing, and personal sanitation strategies, are developed specifically for your operations through our Greenlight Playbook and the assistance of our Greenlight experts. Indeed, such measures, even when implemented alone, have been shown to reduce the spread of the virus by 99%. As our first line of defense, the implementation of individual prevention strategies, specific to your needs, curated by our experts greatly broadens your ability to operate safely and effectively during the pandemic.
Symptom Monitoring and Management
While individual prevention strategies are highly effective at preventing the spread of COVID-19, layering symptom monitoring and management as another prevention strategy creates an even more robust system. Daily symptom monitoring, provided by the Greenlight app, allows employers to quickly identify symptomatic and/or exposed individuals and connect them to testing and medical care. Indeed, studies have shown that when symptom monitoring is integrated into virus prevention mechanisms, individuals are able to gain faster access to care when they need it and prevent unnecessary emergency department visits. This not only prevents the spread of COVID-19 to a population but also ensures the safety of individuals who contract the virus in these environments.
Environmental Prevention Strategies
Environmental prevention strategies such as routine sanitation and ventilation work in tandem with the individual prevention strategies we establish to ensure that an environment is not conducive to infecting individuals. SARS-2-CoV can survive on surfaces for hours to days, depending on the surface type, and we help you develop control mechanisms such as cleaning schedules and PPE availability to ensure that there is proper environmental sanitation both routinely and in the setting of infection. Moreover, the virus is primarily transmitted through larger respiratory droplets, and studies have suggested the importance of ventilation and particle filtration to prevent infection. We provide you with techniques to ensure that your environment is properly ventilated to prevent viral transmission.
Communication and Auditing
Communication and auditing are key mechanisms by which a COVID-19 response can be effective. At Greenlight we help you build a staff communication plan, community communicating plan, and auditing plan to help you best respond to potential infection and evaluate your current preventative efforts. Clear communication with both the staff and the community promotes buy-in, improves adherence to policies, and increases transparency, empowering individuals to make the best and safest decisions for themselves. A basic evaluation of your COVID-19 responses ensures that you are able to make timely decisions and address community needs while ensuring proper operation.
Industry Specific Guidance
Not all COVID-19 responses are the same. At Greenlight, we help curate the best COVID-19 prevention plan for the industry you operate in whether that be education, food, or service industries. To ensure that your COVID-19 response meets your specific needs, Greenlight provides the appropriate guidance just for you.
As a Greenlight organization, implementing all five layers of defense will greatly reduce infection during operations. Join us in preventing COVID-19 from traveling through the holes of your Swiss cheese slices and keep both you and your community safe using Greenlight!
For more information please visit https://greenlightdurham.com/
