Pilots Prevent
January 19, 2021
New Healthcare Partner Carbon Health Providing COVID-19 Testing, Symptom Tracking With Priority Focus on Safe and Healthy Campus for Students, Faculty and Staff
With a national healthcare provider delivering innovative COVID-19 symptom screening and testing, the University of Portland (UP) is laying the groundwork for a measured return to campus for students, faculty and staff. More than 800 undergraduates began prescheduled move-ins this week to occupy UP residence halls following baseline testing by new partner Carbon Health. Classes for the entire enrollment of more than 4,000 students begin on January 25; and will be primarily virtual, with select in-person courses taught by dozens of faculty members who volunteered for on-campus instruction.
The University acted quickly in March 2020 to safeguard the health and wellbeing of students, faculty and staff. Classes began meeting remotely and most employees started to work from home. But this semester, UP will implement a strategy featuring reconfigured campus buildings for social distancing; de-densified, limited occupancy residence halls; stringent face mask policies; and enhanced resources for virus testing and care.
“I have deep admiration for how our community members responded when unprecedented difficulties redefined our University’s operations last spring,” said UP President Rev. Mark L. Poorman, C.S.C. “Despite the challenges we faced, a spirit of perseverance, optimism, and shared responsibility arose within the UP community. Now, as a new semester begins, our energy and resources are focused on all that we can accomplish collectively as we continue to keep community members safe.”
San Francisco-based Carbon Health’s testing protocols were a prerequisite for residence hall move-in. For any student testing positive for COVID-19, UP has established isolation and quarantine areas for additional symptom monitoring and case management supervised by the campus Health & Counseling Center medical staff. Returning faculty and staff have also been subject to COVID-19 testing by their personal healthcare providers. Ongoing screenings and monitoring will be based on the degree of individual and group contact on campus among faculty, staff and students.
Carbon Health has been at the forefront of testing and innovative care programs during the pandemic. The company has facilitated more than 700,000 COVID-19 tests to-date, and launched its COVID-Ready program, designed to help employers and institutions like UP to operate safely during the pandemic, overseeing a safe return to the campus or workplace. The company also introduced a specialty care program, COVID Positive Care, that enables anyone who has tested positive to COVID-19 access to comprehensive care, monitoring and education.
“We are looking forward to partnering with the University of Portland to support efforts to safely bring and keep students, faculty, and staff on campus,” said Dr. Caesar Djavaherian, Co-Founder and Chief Clinical Innovation Officer at Carbon Health. “The team at Carbon Health, which comprises clinicians and technologists, is uniquely suited for this work - it has quickly innovated to address the evolving needs due to COVID-19, creating testing programs and safety protocols to help prevent outbreaks and provide guidance to those who are infected.”
UP’s Fr. Poorman is confident in the University’s plans for the coming term.
“I am inspired by the creativity and expertise exhibited by so many across our campus as we have prepared for our spring semester,” said Fr. Poorman. “Our student, faculty and staff leaders have spent countless hours formulating our plans, in a show of remarkable dedication to UP and its community members. I am pleased that UP is partnering with Carbon Health, a leader in COVID-19 testing, tracing and follow-on care. We look forward to welcoming students and select employees back to campus.”
Robust COVID-19 prevention efforts are in place for the foreseeable future, including a campus health awareness campaign, supplemental screenings, surveillance testing, daily symptom tracking through Carbon Health’s Daily Symptom Tracker, and contact tracing, all in partnership with Carbon Health. UP campus operations are reconfigured to meet federal guidelines, and state and local mandates for pandemic safety.
Carbon Health (www.carbonhealth.com) is a technology-enabled national healthcare provider that delivers in-person primary and urgent care as well as virtual care access to three-fourths of the United States. Carbon Health has been on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S., administering over 700,000 tests to-date and serving over 30 cities with mobile and pop-up clinics, in addition to its 20+ brick and mortar clinics and virtual care services. Carbon has also launched first-of-their-kind programs like COVID Ready to enable businesses and institutions like UP to reopen, and COVID Positive Care to offer care, monitoring, and education to people who have been diagnosed with COVID-19. Carbon has also developed comprehensive testing site databases that are used by Apple Maps as well as open-source clinical datasets, and one of the country’s first COVID-19 assessment tools.
With a team of expert physicians, engineers, and designers, Carbon Health is on a mission to provide personal, accessible, and high-quality care to everyone. Headquartered in San Francisco, Carbon Health’s technology and service provision connect with a broad range of industries across the country, including academia, sports, entertainment, biotechnology and travel.
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