Update to Daily Health Check features text reminders, change in employee requirements

UB’s Daily Health Check is quickly becoming part of everyone’s routine, but a new update introducing text message notifications promises to make the COVID-19 screening tool even more effective and easier to complete. Beginning Oct. 13, members of the UB community who have access to a smartphone are strongly encouraged to enroll their mobile number. By doing so, they will receive automated text reminders to complete the Daily Health Check — delivered right to their phone.

Along with this update, UB has also changed requirements for employees and others who do business with the university. Previously, all UB faculty and staff, except those living outside of New York State, had to complete the Daily Health Check on their workdays. Now, completion is required for:

• Faculty, staff and volunteer faculty and staff who come to a UB or UBMD campus.
• Tenants and affiliates residing in UB facilities who come to a UB campus.
• Vendors who come to campus and perform work that involves staying on campus for longer periods.

Completing the Daily Health Check is optional for those employees who work entirely remotely. However, the university continues to encourage everyone to participate in the screening, even when not required, out of concern for their own health and the well-being of the larger community.

To sign up for Daily Health Check text notifications, users enter their mobile number when prompted, verify via a follow-up text, and then create an account with their first and last name, email address, UBITName, person number and year of birth.

Every day after initial enrollment, users will receive a text notification between 7-8 a.m. All they have to do is click the link, authenticate their login with the first three letters of their last name and year of birth, and complete the health screening.

Users without smartphones may continue to access the tool directly via the web by clicking “none” within the chatbot, but they will no longer receive daily reminders via email; web users will have to remember to complete their Daily Health Check on their own and will be required to enter all the above individual information in full, every time. Accessible web forms will also continue to be made available.

Enrolling in text message notifications allows the Daily Health Check to save users’ individual information for faster login. Whether a user signs up for text message notifications or not, all users will be required to supply this information.

This information is a critical component of the Daily Health Check’s major update, providing campus health officials with a clearer picture of the prevalence of coronavirus on campus. It will connect a user’s individual information with their responses and streamline the initiation of care, helping individuals get the resources they need more quickly, and further reducing the potential for exposure among the wider community.

As part of UB’s comprehensive efforts to monitor and prevent the spread of the coronavirus, this update to the Daily Health Check makes the tool an even more robust, early warning system, with important new benefits for health officials and UB faculty, staff and students.

No matter how users choose to complete their Daily Health Check, their individual information will always be kept confidential and secure. A small group of campus leaders will have access to the data for the limited purpose of screening, tracking and contact tracing, if needed, to preserve the health and safety of the UB community. Summary data may be reported but will not include any individual personal identifiers.

LifeLink, UB’s partner in deploying the Daily Health Check, underwent a rigorous vetting process to demonstrate that it could meet the university’s stringent privacy and data protection requirements. As part of the agreement with UB, LifeLink has no claim to ownership of any UB user data, and is contractually obligated to protect that data in accordance with industry standards, which include a network firewall, intrusion-detection technology and regular security-vulnerability assessments.

This update to the Daily Health Check stems from UB’s commitment to protecting all aspects of health and safety — including the security of individual information — of all UB students, faculty and staff during the COVID-19 pandemic.