Investigates

Target 11 investigates contact tracing efforts in Pennsylvania

PITTSBURGH — Department of Health officials in Pennsylvania have said contact tracing is a critical way to control the spread of COVID-19. The state pumped millions of tax dollars into the effort, including hiring a private company, but a former employee said it didn’t go as planned.

“I think it was mismanaged from the get-go,” said the woman, who agreed to talk exclusively to Channel 11 if we concealed her identity.

She worked as a contact tracer for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

She was one of approximately 1,000 people hired by a private staffing company that received a $23 million government contract to hire contact tracers for Pennsylvania.

She started in August as a team supervisor. She said everyone worked from home but there were issues from the very beginning.

“I had people on my team that didn’t receive headsets until November and that’s a critical part of contact tracing. You have to have a headset to make that call,” she said.

She also told Target 11 investigator Rick Earle that for weeks at a time, many of the contact tracers had little to do, especially in the beginning.

“The program started in August. It really didn’t get traction until probably five months later. A lot of the contact tracers were lucky to have two calls per day. We had teams of over 50 people and the call volume just wasn’t there,” she said.

Earle responded, “What happened? Why was it so slow because we had so many cases?”

“That’s right. I think there was probably a mismanagement from the get-go,” said the former contact tracer, who left in January.

She claimed the entire process was slowed by a lack of case investigators, who she said initiated the cases and then forwarded them to the contact tracers.

“They didn’t bring over enough people to do the case side because that’s where it starts. That’s where the amount of people should have started on the program,” she said.

She also said there were problems with the computer program they used.

Multiple contact tracers could get into one record at the same time without each other knowing.

“If multiple people can be in a record you don’t know if someone else is on a phone with this particular contact or not,” said the woman.

Earle replied, “That doesn’t seem like a very good system?

“No, it wasn’t efficient at all,” she responded.

She said it led to duplication.

In one case, she said, one contact received call from 17 different tracers.

And she said the software program wouldn’t let tracers add people in the same household.

“You couldn’t add people if you reached out to a contact and they were in a household with four other people. You couldn’t add those people to the database because it has to start at the case side, so it became an issue where duplicates were found in the system,” she added.

She said she and other co-workers expressed their concerns to management.

“Anytime we would go to upper management whether it be resources, tools or systems, you know it was kind of put on the back burner,” she said.

Target 11 reached out to the state health department.

They sent us a two-page email acknowledging that the pandemic has stretched the capacity of their department and their contractors, but also touting the program that they said has resulted in identifying 75% of the total contacts.

In October, they said, they installed a new software program “to ensure all tracers were able to successfully do their jobs.”

The email response from the health department continued.

“Throughout the entire COVID-19 response, the contact tracing program has assessed needs to best ensure taxpayer dollars were well spent and staff had a fulfilling workload.”

Target 11 also reviewed some job surveys online and found mixed reviews, including similar complaints lodged by the former employee.

One wrote, “Unorganized. Was hired as a contact tracer and make maybe one call a day. Systemic issues they don’t know how to fix.”

But others had a much different experience.

“I love the job and the company has been very professional...”

Another added, “I’ve gained new skill sets to help me move up. I couldn’t be more grateful for this company.”

The former employee we spoke with said there were some improvements made and she believed the contact tracers had a positive impact despite the issues.

“I think we did definitely make a difference. I think there’s a lot of good people that have worked there, there’s a lot of good people that are still there. and they’re proud of this mission and supportive of this mission and making a difference. But, just the mismanagement at the very beginning, just the lack of resources the lack of upper management, and just the hodgepodge of how this was put together, has just been disappointing,” she said.

Read the full response from the Pennsylvania Department of Health here:

“We are sorry that this individual had a frustrating experience as a contact tracer, but appreciate that she noted improvements in the system over time. The unprecedented nature of the pandemic has stretched the capacity of the Department of Health and its contractors to plan, but also to be nimble and responsive to the many unknowns associated with the virus. There is no way to know how many cases may occur, but we have needed to ensure we have enough tracers and investigators to handle what the reality is.

“Contact tracers are the individuals who are informing, educating and monitoring close contacts who were exposed to COVID-19 and they play a very important role in the fight against COVID-19. However, it could not be done without the case investigation collected by public health professionals which finds where the case went and who they came in contact with in order to effectively contact trace.

“While case investigations and contact tracing programs existed long before the COVID-19 pandemic as a proven public health practice to decrease the spread of diseases, the COVID-19 pandemic presented such widespread, highly transmissible disease that the department needed to reinforce the public health infrastructure of the existing programs. Prior to expanding the contact tracing program, there were about 130 community health nurses that were the backbone of this work.

“In July 2020, the Department of Health announced a partnership to recruit, hire, train and support 1,000 new contact tracers through a nearly $23 million federally funded contract with Insight Global. This effort helped to build the existing public health infrastructure while focusing recruitment efforts to workers who lost their jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic and ensure that individuals hired represent the diversity of the state. All staff were hired in cohorts of about 250 individuals in order to have thorough and adequate training and make sure Insight Global was able to support these incoming remote workers with access to internet and technology, including computers and headsets, to do the important work at hand.

“Since the implementation of the Contact Tracing Management System in early October through January 23 in those areas of the state where Pennsylvania Department of Health is responsible for contact tracing, 73,575 of 98,075 contacts, or 75 percent of the total contacts identified, were effectively reached to communicate their quarantine status and offer ongoing symptom monitoring.

“In October 2020, the department was able to move to utilize Salesforce to ensure all tracers were able to successfully do their job as well as provide further statistics and supports.

“Throughout the entire COVID-19 response, the contact tracing program has assessed needs to best ensure taxpayer dollars were well spent and staff had a fulfilling workload. Therefore, in December 2020, the department announced that it would adjust the supports for the contact tracing program in order to ensure longer-term supports. For instance, we worked with the last two cohorts hired by Insight Global to temporarily reduce hours slightly. By doing this we could extend the federal funding available for longer into the pandemic.

“Another effort created in December 2020 was the Connect & Protect Form – a unique, digital tool to support case investigation efforts. Contact tracers started to make calls to people diagnosed with COVID-19 and send them this form to complete. Once completed and returned, this helps identify the close contacts to appropriately be able to contact trace. Since the launch on December 21, we have seen success in the use of this digital case investigation tool. While it is specifically for cases between 19 and 64 years old inside the department’s jurisdiction, we have received over 6,000 completed forms.

“The department continues to monitor and adjust staffing workloads based on program needs to most appropriately respond to COVID-19.”

Target 11 reached out multiple times to the private contractor hired to run the program, but they never got back to us.