Benefits Data Is Helping HR Leaders Assess COVID-19 Risk and Plan for A Return to Work

Is your state one of the many loosening restrictions and allowing restaurants, hair salons, and gyms to reopen their doors? Businesses around the country are adapting to a new normal, whether it’s requiring face coverings, spacing tables further apart, or texting clients waiting in the parking lot when it’s their turn to enter. There are many innovative ways that businesses are tackling the question of how to return to work safely, and for self-insured employers, benefits leaders are at the forefront of planning and executing these strategies. 

One crucial step when planning for employees to return to office environments? Using benefits claims data to see who should come back (and at what cadence). Every organization has a unique employee population, and each employee has a different level of risk for severe symptoms due to COVID-19. For example, we know that people with chronic respiratory illness or certain conditions like diabetes and heart disease are hit harder by COVID-19. Benefits leaders are using population health data to plan and strategize who should return and who should work from home for a longer period of time. 

This video gives a good overview of how healthcare data analytics is helping employee benefits leaders make decisions around the COVID-19 pandemic: 

As you can see, the benefits of a healthcare data analytics platform are clear when it comes to answering questions about COVID-19. Benefits teams who are using a data warehouse will have better insight into how many employees are at risk, which chronic conditions they may be facing, and how to prioritize those who can return to work vs. those who may need to remain in isolation. 

To learn more about employee benefits and COVID-19, visit our Resource Center.