Clinical healthcare professionals needed to become full-time contact tracers

From UH News, June 25, 2020

With the increasing numbers of COVID-19 cases throughout Hawaiʻi, the University of Hawaiʻi–Hawaiʻi State Department of Health (UH-DOH) Contact Tracing Training Program is seeking additional applicants with clinical healthcare backgrounds and an undergraduate degree who are available to be activated by DOH as full-time contact tracers for up to three months in the near future. A smaller number of applicants able to serve part-time (at least 20 hours per week) will be considered.

These contact tracers will provide the supplemental workforce capacity to identify and facilitate isolating individuals who are sick or have been exposed to someone with COVID-19.

Sign up here

“Given the state’s reopening and rise in COVID-19 cases, our partnership will serve DOH and the people of Hawaiʻi by providing the needed contact tracing training programs,” said Aimee Grace, UH program lead and director of the UHealthy Hawaiʻi Initiative. “We are now specifically seeking clinical healthcare professionals who are available to be activated by DOH full-time as contact tracers.”

The UH-DOH program has reopened registration for Track 1: Contact Tracing Training for Clinical Healthcare Professional to meet this urgent need. The free, accelerated, one-and-a-half day online training course is open to:

Registered nurses
Nurse practitioners
Social workers
Pharmacists
Physicians
Physician assistants
Emergency medical technicians (EMTs)
Paramedics

While UH is providing the contact tracing training as part of the partnership, DOH will activate and manage any needed contact tracers. Once training has been completed, the contact tracers will be activated as needed for a short-term period of up to three months.

Track 1 training for clinical healthcare professionals is being administered by UH Mānoa’s School of Nursing and Dental Hygiene (SONDH) and has been developed jointly with DOH. Track 1 program lead Kristine Qureshi said, “The SONDH has an extraordinary team of individuals who are able, willing and ready to respond to the demand of training the number of contact tracers who are needed to support our state during this challenging time.”

Signups are ongoing for two other training arms that are also part of the UH–DOH program:

Track 2: Community Contact Tracer Training—A six-week training program for those with undergraduate degrees but who do not have clinical backgrounds, and are available for full-time activation by DOH after program completion.

Community Health Worker Training—Requires a high school degree or GED.

View the flyer (PDF) for more information about any of these programs and sign up online. For specific questions email oshi@hawaii.edu.

Related Posts:

UH begins training COVID-19 contact tracers
UH, DOH partner for COVID-19 contact tracing…
Community contact tracer training underway