As the White House begins to roll out the first stages of its six-prong plan to combat COVID-19, the country’s more than 175 million vaccinated individuals must turn their attention to the second prong: further protecting the vaccinated. President Biden announced on September 9 that to make vaccine protection even stronger, clinics and pharmacies across the nation will begin to administer COVID-19 booster shots during the week of September 20. For employers, institutes of higher education, and healthcare facilities that are tasked with ensuring their people are vaccinated, this presents a new problem: How can they track, manage, and provide an audit trail of the COVID-19 vaccine boosters that are officially and imminently on the way?
The administrative burden that employers are faced with in tracking multiple vaccine and booster doses is tremendous, and involves navigating several state, federal and international privacy laws surrounding the protection of individuals’ personal and medical data, including HIPAA, ADA, FERPA, FCRA, CCPA and GDPR. For employers, the stakes are significant: fail to track the boosters, and create a safety loophole in their organization. Track boosters without accounting for this long trail of laws and regulations, and face legal penalties and litigation.
One North Carolina company has created a comprehensive solution that offers a unique level of commitment and care to businesses, health care facilities, and institutes of higher education facing this significant challenge. CastleBranch, an infectious disease screening company with more than 20 years of experience, launched its RealVaccinationID.com in early 2021, and has since earned the endorsement of the Organization for Associate Degree Nursing (OADN) and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), the nation’s two largest nursing healthcare associations, representing more than 80 percent of nursing education in the country. In March 2020, CastleBranch introduced its CB COVID-19 Compliance solution to help organizations safely establish a new normal that includes diagnostic test tracking, temperature and symptom monitoring, and quarantine and isolation protocols. These two solutions together, RealVaccinationID.com and CB COVID-19 Compliance, make up CastleBranch’s essential tool kit designed to assist organizations with meeting the requirements of the new federal COVID-19 action plan, from the first prong to the last.
RealVaccinationID.com is an intuitive solution that allows for safe and secure tracking and management of multiple vaccine and booster doses. As a consumer reporting agency, CastleBranch maintains strict compliance with state and federal personal data privacy regulations, freeing organizations from this responsibility and the serious logistical, legal, and liability risks therein.
To receive a Real Vaccination ID card, individuals upload their vaccine proof to CastleBranch to be verified by their team of experts. A convenient, driver’s license-sized card provides digital and physical proof of an individual’s COVID-19 vaccination or waiver status and creates a secure and confidential audit trail for their employer. The original vaccine documentation is then available as digital verification by scanning a password-protected QR code on the back of the card. To add additional booster documentation, a cardholder need only upload booster proof to CastleBranch, making the solution adaptable to any number of boosters that may be forthcoming as part of President Biden’s plan and allowing reporting visibility to the employer.
