Red Lake contact tracing team ramps up COVID-19 community response efforts

by Jill Andersen, MPT, NBC-HWC, physical therapist for Red Lake Hospital, Indian Health Service

October 2, 2020

A key strategy for preventing further spread of COVID-19 is through contact
tracing. Contact tracing is a core disease control measure that involves
identifying the people who have come in contact with those who have an
infectious disease. Throughout the Indian health system, we are scaling up
a workforce of contract tracers to work collaboratively to stop the
transmission of COVID-19.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the Indian Health Service has
collaborated with tribes, urban Indian organizations, states, local
governments, and other strategic partners in the nation’s overall response
and recovery efforts. Contact tracers across the IHS serve in a number of
environments including remote areas searching for those who may not have
internet or phone service, among homeless populations and multigenerational
households.

At
Red Lake Hospital
in Minnesota, contact tracers are working to slow the spread of COVID-19
within its tribal communities.

Red Lake currently has a contact tracing team of 16 members. The team
completed
training through Johns Hopkins University
and recruited additional health care providers and paraprofessionals within
its system. Although Red Lake employees trained through Johns Hopkins, the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [PDF]
and the
Association of State and Territorial Health Officials
also offers training courses.

Due to the congregate living and multigenerational homes on the Red Lake
reservation, tribal and hospital leaders determined that immediate
deployment of a local contact tracing team was crucial in slowing the
spread of COVID-19 in the Red Lake community. A local team was formed to
address the unique needs of the community, provide familiarity, and foster
trust with community members during the contact tracing process.

Red Lake Hospital staff have previously received state and national
recognition for contact tracing efforts related to the ongoing Minnesota
syphilis outbreak. These existing collaborative relationships between the
tribal and federal staff continue to be leveraged for our current COVID-19
pandemic response. Contact tracing during the COVID-19 pandemic includes
asking patients to isolate and their known contacts to quarantine at home
voluntarily in addition to coordinating goods and services to support these
instructions. We address the education of how to safely quarantine, help
arrange testing of those that consent, and calm any fears that quite often
arise from this type of call. We also make a point of reaching out almost
daily to check on our patients' physical and mental well-being.

The hospital has been testing and processing the majority of COVID-19 tests
in the hospital lab, so the turn-around time from symptoms or suspected
contact, to testing, and tracing is oftentimes completed within 24-hours. A
communication white-board in the public health nursing office provides
situational awareness at a glance and a breakdown of specific communities
on the reservation to help identify possible pockets of activity. We keep
the community Incident Response Team abreast of the trends for COVID-19
spread in the community and help identify needs and resources for those in
quarantine and isolation. We also work with the local schools to design a
workflow that allows for the same speed of tracing with another year
starting for students and staff.

The Red Lake contact tracing team is committed to doing our part to slow
the spread of COVID-19 in our community.

**
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Members of the Red Lake contact tracing team (L to R): John Nicholson,
Eileen Miller, Laurel Lussier, Charmaine Branchaud, and Jill Andersen

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