Symptom Tracker Helps Mitigate COVOD-19 Spread
This past fall, a new daily tracker was developed to monitor the health of the students, faculty, and staff returning to campus, in order to help detect the onset or progression of COVID-19 symptoms.
The Symptom Tracker—accessible through smartphone apps and WPI’s website—connects community members with health resources. It also provides critical information to the university as part of ongoing efforts to help protect the health and safety of the WPI campus community during the pandemic.
The IT Services team worked with the COVID Health Behaviors Group to build this new functionality using Microsoft Power Apps—a suite of apps, services, and connectors that allowed WPI to create a custom tool with automation to make entering and following up on symptoms easy. This is a secure tool that uses an individual’s WPI credentials and multi-factor authentication.
Daily use of the Symptom Tracker is an important part of the university’s overall health and safety plans, which include:
- Routine testing of all students, faculty, and staff who will be on campus
- Safety protocols, including social distancing measures
- Reconfiguration of classrooms and campus spaces
- Additional Health Services staff
- TechFlex, a reworking of teaching and learning that allows for online, in-person, and hybrid options, giving students and faculty the flexibility to choose the options that are best for them and their loved ones.
WPI’s Testing Coordinator monitors the results daily and connects with those who report any symptoms.