Put to the Test
How Gaget Bengzon quickly changed hats, from being an AC Health mergers and acquisitions consultant to Ayala Group’s COVID-19 testing czar for employees
Words by ALYA B. HONASAN
When she was first signed on in 2020 to help out with hospital acquisitions for Ayala Healthcare Holdings, Inc. (AC Health), little did AC Health mergers and acquisitions consultant Margaret “Gaget” Bengzon realize that her work would take on an entirely different dimension by April of the same year.
“There was a pause in my activities—looking at hospitals, making assessments and decisions about whether to invest or not,” says Gaget. “There was a lockdown, and the group had to think, ‘How do we work on a safe reentry for the staff?’”
In the middle of April, they launched Project Quest to carry out COVID-19 testing for Ayala employees. It was divided into several phases.
Phase 1: Triage
First was the triage: assessing employees’ needs, circumstances, and “how safe or not safe it was for them to re-engage,” says Gaget.
Phase 2: Testing
The second phase was testing, which meant consulting with experts, scientists, and physicians on the protocols—what Gaget calls “erring on the side of conservatism.” First came COVID-19 Rapid Testing, to check for the presence of the antibodies that fight the virus, which might have developed after exposure. “If positive for those antibodies, we subject the person to the confirmatory reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test, the gold standard, because it identifies the RNA of the Covid-19 virus, the actual pathogen.”
“The testing phase was complicated by divided opinions on rapid tests.”
The testing phase was complicated by divided opinions on rapid tests. If a company is willing to pay for testing, then they should have the latitude and autonomy to figure out what makes sense for them to help protect their employees. So if not antibody testing and not PCR, then what? Those were the only options available at that time. And they continue to be the only viable options at this time.”
Indeed, the testing phase was, expectedly, the most logistically demanding. “There had to be an inspection of sites with the team, medical and operational folks. There were testing sites offered to us, but we said, ‘No, it’s not going to work.’”
A testing site required defined areas for a specific flow of movement, from registration point, waiting area, and extraction area, to another waiting area, physician consultation, and then egress—with separate exits for confirmed positives and negatives. “These were non-negotiables.”
All details covered. Manila Water employees wait at the testing booths. Safety protocols included social distancing, regular disinfection of the area, and carefully planned entry and exit points. (Read more in “Looking After Our Own.”)
Phase 3: Treatment and Tracking
After testing came the treatment phase for those who needed it, and finally the tracking phase, which was about case management—that is, determining the close contacts of a patient. “How do we provide care for whoever this person came into close contact with? There’s also corporate tracking, which looks at the prevalent states of the different business units, from both location and work position perspectives.”
Creating a “Work Stream”
Gaget actually joined Project Quest towards the end of April, after a safe work flow had been set up, complete with temperature stations, plastic covers and acetate to separate the front-liners from the staff, hand-washing stations, and whole foot baths. The protocols were in place, but someone had to set up and implement the process. “That’s when they figured they needed someone with an operations background,” says Gaget.
“It was pretty daunting at first, on a number of fronts,” Gaget admits. First was the May 15 deadline, the initial anticipated lifting of the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ). “They felt that at that point, there would be more folks coming into the office, so they needed to push this whole safety reentry program into fruition.”
Protecting employees. Medical teams collect samples from employees of Entrego and Globe. These are carefully labeled and sent to the a Tropical Disease Foundation, which Ayala had partnered with to create a COVID-19 laboratory for Ayala employees. (Read more in “Finding the Enemy.”)
Then, Gaget was bringing together teams from several different organizations who were quite unfamiliar with each other and had to create a workstream that would combine talents and expertise across units.
Gaget was aware that she was an outsider coming in, but that became inconsequential as the work progressed. “here was a common appreciation of the importance of the work Everybody was aware of the time frame. And everybody was professional, had good intentions, and was focused on getting the job done.”
Gaget admits she had concerns about her own personal and family safety, as well. “There was a risk, but it could be mitigated. It was something I felt could be managed, and it was an important thing to do. So I accepted the engagement.”
“The various Ayala business units were even offered a choice: “You want us to come to you, or do you want to come to us?””
Testing for All
It was the AC Health network that was doing the testing, composed of teams from subsidiaries FamilyDoc and Healthway. The various Ayala business units were even offered a choice: “You want us to come to you, or do you want to come to us?” For bigger units, teams were sent on-site; for others, employees came to the different Healthway or FamilyDoc clinics. In total, the project fielded 12 teams.
The staff also had to learn to use the test kits, both rapid and RT-PCR versions. “The first time we did the pre-pilot, we did six to eight tests an hour,” Gaget says. “Now we’re up to 15, 17 an hour. So we’ve gotten quite good at it—and that hasn’t been at the expense of a good patient experience. We’ve gotten good feedback from the patients, as well.”
Safety checks. All #AyalaCitizens employees who had to lockdown at work to provide critical services were tested before they were cleared to go home—such as this SEDA frontliner, who stayed to care for guests who were stranded because of travel restrictions. (Read more in “The Warmth of a Hug.”)
““Ayala Corporation is really putting the investment in—financial, time, prioritizing patient, staff, and customer safety.””
Belts-and-suspenders approach
The reassuring news, Gaget reveals, is that Project Quest will be running “as long as people need to be tested. on the whole, we have very good baseline data that the prevalence for the group is low.” At this point, the program is transitioning to another platform, pool PCR testing, which means gathering the test results of groups working closely together to see a bigger picture.
Even from the inside, Gaget reports, Ayala Corporation’s efforts to look after the health of its employees can only be described as “excellent.” “It’s really putting the investment in—financial, time, prioritizing patient, staff, and customer safety. It’s really taking a belts-and-suspenders approach to making sure the whole process is safe. And it really shows leadership, even from the standpoint of contributing to the national effort.”
The experience is less about lessons learned, Gaget concludes, than “confirmations of things that we already know, like the centrality of good communication. Particularly in a situation where there’s a lot of uncertainty, anxiety, and misinformation, it’s okay to tell people, ‘We’re not sure, we don’t know everything, but at this point, this is the best that we know, and we’re doing the best that we can.’” #
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 11, 2020
