Local manufacturers screen employees for COVID-19 symptoms

Local manufacturers are screening their employees for COVID-19 symptoms onsite with the help of St. Luke’s University Health Network’s occupational medicine department.

15 Lehigh Valley businesses, including the Nestle Waters plant and Sam Adams brewery, both in Breiningsville, are working with St. Luke’s to screen more than 6,000 employees daily.

“More are coming on line,” said Kyra Dodson, St. Luke’s worksite injury prevention coordinator. “We expect to be screening over 10,000 employees from more than 25 businesses in coming weeks and to expand our reach into Berks and Monroe counties.”

During the screenings, a team of nurses, medical assistants and athletic trainers provide onsite temperature screenings of the employees daily as they enter their workspace to identify those symptomatic for the coronavirus. If an employee is identified as symptomatic, they are referred for testing.

St. Luke’s says that they have redeployed 50 athletic trainers from their sports medicine department to help with the screenings.

“The ability to step in and assist our occupational medicine department in safeguarding the workplace has been essential to keeping supply chains moving across the region,” said John Hauth, senior network administrator for sports medicine relationships for SLUHN.

According to SLUHN, the screening initiative reduces the chances that a symptomatic employee will expose others at their worksite to the virus and allows manufacturing plants to keep operating while working towards “flattening the curve.”