Welcome to Base Camp!
We are proud to announce our school’s new partnership with Base Camp Health and their back-to-school safety platform called Ascend. You should have received a welcome email from them today and later will receive another email with your login and password credentials. Ascend is a web-based platform that will allow us to protect our students and staff from the spread of COVID-19. The Ascend platform gives our school leaders the real-time information they need to assess the risk of virus spread through our community and take proactive steps to keep infected individuals off campus and return them back in a healthy way as quickly as possible.
It is easy to use. Before school each day, staff and students will take a 30-second survey, answering questions about their symptoms and any known exposure to COVID-19. The app will combine that information with contextual data and other risk factors to tell each student or staff member whether to report to campus that day or not.
While the platform makes invisible COVID risk visible and manageable, it keeps data protected, in accordance with the 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
HIPAA and FERPA require that healthcare data be protected with stringent privacy procedures, and our partnership with Base Camp Health will be 100% compliant with appropriate privacy regulations.
Ascend makes use of healthcare data of students and staff in its assessment of their risk of COVID-19 infection. But that data is visible only to the user and authorized medical personnel.
When users are kept off-site or given instruction to locate testing, the details of that information is not made available to supervisors or managers. They know only whether a user will be allowed to the site, but they are not told why.
Additionally, the platform itself makes use of the most current data protection measures available, from data encryption to secure site protocols for the physical locations of our servers to protect data from bad actors. Data security is a primary focus of Base Camp Health, and their Ascend application deploys industry-leading protection measures for our staff and student information.
Our students, staff, and their families can be assured both that users are protected from data risk and that HIPAA and FERPA provisions are fully met by this exciting new partnership. Please make a note of Ascend’s customer service contact information listed in their email and let me know if I may assist you, as I will be the school’s point of contact for data management issues. Our School Nurse, Darianne Altieri, will be your contact for medical questions or concerns. She may be reached via email at daltieri@ccslancers.com or by calling the school offices. Also, please be sure and click the following link to sign your COVID Wellness Agreement by this Thursday, August 13th, COVID-19 Notice, Release and Screening Wellness Agreement. We are so thankful for each and every one of you and look forward to seeing you soon!
Is Base Camp an “App?”
Some of you were asking if there is an app for Base Camp. As mentioned in the previous communications, Ascend is a web based application. It is not an app you download onto your phone from the app store. Instead, it is a platform that you access through the URL of the Base Camp Health website.
However, for those of you who are used to having shortcuts on your home screen, there is an option for you. This PDF is a quick reference guide for saving the link to the assessment on your device’s home screen. This can create an ease of access for each day. However, please note, if there are any updates on your phone there is a potential for that shortcut link to “break.” If this happens, you will need to go back to the original link and save it again.
Another option is to bookmark the Base Camp Health website: www.basecamp-health.com on both your phone and your computer or tablet. On the Base Camp website the “Login” link in the upper righthand corner will lead you directly to the login page for the assessment. Since you will need to show your green check mark when you arrive to campus, completing the survey on your phone or your upper school student’s phone is encouraged. Please let me know if you have any other questions.
Carpool and Student Drivers
The following is Health Screening Procedure for carpool and student drivers:
- Carpooling-If your child is carpooling with another parent, please make sure the driver has a screenshot of your child’s green checkmark for the day. Or, if your child has a phone, you may complete the screening on their phone so that they have the green checkmark to show.
- Student Drivers-Parents may give their username and password to their children who drive and are responsible enough to do their own health screening. Student drivers will be responsible for having a health screening completed each morning, so please let them know the importance of the screening and that they may not enter campus without completing it and showing their green checkmark.
Please be sure and test out the app before school starts and, as always, we are here to answer any questions. For technical support, please contact Base Camp customer support at 423-680-6261 or via email at support@basecamp-health.com. Medical questions should go to our School Nurse, Darianne Altieri, at daltieri@ccslancers.com.
