Email Triage Screening Service for COVID-19

The goal of our official screening email mailbox (med.coronavirus@wustl.edu) was to advise students/staff/faculty whether to self-quarantine or return to work, based on symptoms and travel history. On March 13, we were asked by the deans of the medical school to manage this new service and provide volunteers. By March 16, we had recruited over 100 students, four of whom we designated as "team captains" due to prior experience. On March 18, we developed a standardized script and began fielding requests, sending over 1,000 responses within the first two days of operation. Throughout this project we collaborated closely with our school Occupational Health Services, especially Dr. Karen Winters and Dr. Gary Weil. All levels of medical students (M1s, M2s, M3s, M4s, and MSTP-Grads) provided shift support. On April 3, three weeks and 1,800 cases later, we had afforded the school enough time to develop a more robust hotline call center staffed by clinical workers (mostly elderly or from closed clinics), so we closed the shared mailbox and considered the project—nicknamed "CHAT: COVID-19 Hotline Auxiliary Team"—a success.