Survey Raw Responses: What was the biggest challenge or lesson learned with your contact tracing process/procedures?

The time and resources required to properly implement the initial and subsequent (daily) follow-ups.
Not every student wants to socially distance themselves and will occasionally gather with friends in a group environment.
Untimeliness of test results makes the contact tracing process not so efficacious.
Greater time requirement than anticipated. It would be better to initiate the quarantine of people who have had close contact with someone who is symptomatic immediately rather than to wait until the symptomatic person’s COVID test result is available.
Delay in implementation.
Our biggest challenge is being mainly a commuter campus and a regional campus, and as such, we do not have the financial resources to implement a full plan and we do not control what our students, staff and faculty do and once they leave campus.
There wasn’t a consistent location for testing, which made it almost impossible to effectively perform contact tracing protocols. The test results also were delayed.
We haven’t had to use them yet, so time will tell!!!
Campus health staff were challenged by numbers and not all students/parents cooperated by providing contacts.
Staff wanted to be informed when there was an incident on campus.
Campus community members do not understand the process and therefore believe it is ineffectual and exposing them to sick individuals unnecessarily.
Obtaining truth and honesty from individuals.
Time.
So far, this has gone well also.
We needed a comprehensive plan and guidelines.
The speed with which we respond and start the process is key, in order to ensure all potential contacts are remembered by the individual in question.
The challenge has to do with cell phone data tracing and Wi-Fi connection points on-campus, so if someone leaves campus or goes to Greek life locations, you don’t know who else they may have been in contact with.
We used our in-house Johns Hopkins trained folks (students and employees) the first week of positive tests. Our employees spent hours on the phone with the parents of the identified students. Lesson learned – quarantine, isolation and contact tracing plan was not fully developed and was updated. Worked with our local county health department to generate notification letters from them, not the college.
The challenge was the length of time it takes for test results to come back, the self-reporting of a positive case resulted in a lag in time to identify where and when the positive cases were in the rooms/areas or buildings so to get cleaning and disinfecting done before anyone enters the room/area or buildings is another set of challenges.
This process was handled by HR.
Everyone wants information earlier than you can reasonably be expected to make decisions. It is important that you focus on safety and operations rather than the inevitable chatter.
For the time it takes for the contract tracing to go into effect, we were a little late to the game getting everyone trained. Keeping up with the amount of cases.
Took a long time to hire the personnel for the COVID-19 Response Team/Contact Tracing Team.
None really. It’s a pretty simple app that was designed.
Making sure there was or is not actual contact between others.
In our state, only the Department of Health officials do contact tracing. We support their efforts with providing names and phone numbers. We are VERY glad they are responsible for all contact tracing.
Tracking timing and conveying the importance of this process to students and staff.
Getting timely test results.
We currently do not allow students to visit each other from dorm to dorm. We expect students to visit each other in public spaces cafeterias, classrooms, and similar kinds of areas.
3/4 of the student body live off-campus.
Getting everyone to stay engaged.
Too few contact tracers for growing number of possibly infected students.
Challenge: Not having clearly developed and well validated contact tracing policies and protocols Lesson: Having approved and well defined and validated contact tracing procedures/work instructions with designated responsibilities.
Having updated contact information in our system is a challenge.
Contact tracing is being conducted by the State, but our app feeds directly to the Department of Public Health.
Students lying about exposures and then trying to track what actually happened.
The system uses a bracelet beacon that works in conjunction with a phone app. The beacons are constantly being forgotten or lost.
Getting system up and running.
Larger number of staff required than planned.
Too many different people and entities involved.
Coordination with the County Health Department(s).
Identifying resources that are needed, as well as how to make contact tracing happen quickly once positive cases are identified.
Not enough staff for tracing…
Dealing with students, staff, and faculty worked fine. The main challenge was how to address the large number of third party contractors who work on campus in numerous support functions.
We implemented contact “notification” that ran in tandem with the Department of Public Health contact tracing. The challenge with doing this quickly became not only the quantity of reports we were getting, but being able to turn those around quickly enough to make contact tracing effective.
Ensuring everyone does it daily.
All contact tracing is handled by the state of Vermont Department of Health.
So far so good. Faculty are to have seating charts and/or other attendance tracking for the classes they teach. Other events have sign-in/sign-out procedures. Some are digital, some are manual. Faculty/staff have daily screenings (online). We haven’t had a significant event to stress the tracing, but so far no issues.
Software for contact tracing not ready in time, so manual data entry being kept in separate files in the meantime.
Timely communication to workers. Rumor mill is faster than the process. Perception that the management is secretive as a result of observing HIPPA requirements.
Overwhelmed by the initial volume of contact tracing and the manpower required to manage.
Students not reporting or responding.
When someone presents a symptom on the electronic symptom checker, the Environmental Health and Safety department would contact them. When questioning the patient they must be accurate/consistent about what is asked. They need to be accurate in order to not get symptoms confused with seasonal allergies etc. This is where we went wrong. We need to get patient tested ASAP to ensure that this is not a symptom from something besides COVID.
True contact tracing is beyond our resource availability.
Biggest challenge is time. We do not yet have all of the QR signs installed. QR codes are to be scanned through our app when entering any room on campus. We have not implemented it extensively enough yet to know the lessons learned.
Adoption of app.
Communication with State and Local AHJ’s is challenging but vital for success.
Adapting to the change in guidelines for social distancing.
The inherent time delay in receiving test results.
Too early to tell. We have limited on campus student population.
Much too soon to tell, we’re only in week one.
The level of digital information varies. More information on the front end creates concern with student information and less information on the front end takes more time for tracing.
Because we are not fully open, we don’t know how well it will work next semester if we go back to full in-person instruction or a hybrid delivery model.
Students, instructors not being honest.
Again, poor guidance from federal and state government.
So far, so good.
Staffing needed to keep everything running smoothly and for all of the necessary follow up needed.
So far so good though we have not had the need to contact trace any students yet.
Haven’t had to do contract tracing yet (fingers crossed, praying).
Prior to students returning, HR was doing the contact tracing. After the students returned, the Department of Public Health took over contact tracing. Challenge: Failure to report. Lesson Learned: More communication needed.
Contact tracing is being handled by the Dept. of Health, it’s still early in our semester so, so far, so good. But our numbers so far are low.
It takes more people than they originally thought, and they need to sit together as a (socially-distanced) group to share information.
The process has worked well. As a community college, our students are, per capita a little older. Many have life, families, and jobs outside college and do not take as many risks as the dorm life students seem to. They have tended to be well behaved and more compliant of directives and expectations provided by the administration. They can’t afford to screw up.
Needed to work with county health department who are slow in providing test results.
Students not reporting they have been exposed, are showing symptoms or are potentially positive.
I do not believe we have had enough cases to formulate an opinion on lessons learned or if it has gone as planned.
Expectations of faculty were very disproportionate to actual capabilities.
Coordinating the full plan with the County Health Department – good relationship, but it takes time and good communication.
Be flexible as CDC guidance changes.
Not a challenge. We worked with our county health department to implement contact tracing for our campus. One of the challenges has been getting data from test sites not affiliated with the institution’s test site.
Still fine tuning the process.
Results slow coming back and contact tracing slow to engage.
Much bigger effort than had been anticipated during the summer.
Partnering with the county health department. They have move resources and experience.
We are relying on supervisors to keep lists.
We need more people involved in this effort.
It is very time and labor intensive.
It’s kind of early to tell with this one, but so far, it seems to be working.
Remaining flexible enough to respond to unplanned issues.
Knowing which students that went to their county health department vs those that went to Student Health on campus has been a challenge.
Getting the program setup for all groups including visitors.
We are still awaiting the results of our process.
Using the police department encourages higher degree of cooperation in tracing.
Contractors and others that are not Student- Faculty -or Staff being aware and careful of process.
Ensuring everyone understands the process.
The process is still a bit slow to be totally effective.
It is an honor system meaning and we have to count on individuals filing their electronic check-ins accurately as they move about campus.
Coordination with local health district is critical.
Timing of the College receiving notification of a positive case (such as late at night), and getting all the communication and steps taken care of prior to the next day.
Not everyone subscribed to the app.
So far so good.
Contact tracing is only as good as the recall or testimony of the infected person.
Not having significant amounts of cases near our campus has given us the ability to provide on campus testing; however, there are a number of local health resources that can provide testing should the need arise.

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