New Service Enhances Corporate Travel Risk Management With Pinpoint Precision

Businesses wishing to exercise a holistic level of duty of care for employees travelling abroad for work, whilst also potentially saving on totally unnecessary expenditure, have a sophisticated new option to call upon. 

Pinpoint Travel Health utilises cutting-edge technology and data from leading sources, including the World Health Organisation (WHO), to provide Travel Health Briefs that offer companies pinpoint precision when planning the healthcare needs of their employees abroad.

With many business itineraries taking employees to locations to which holidaymakers might never venture, there can be greater risks for business travellers than standard travellers. This can be particularly the case if heading off the beaten track to visit a supplier in a rural area, or having to criss-cross a country, travelling into different areas and zones.

With an employer’s legal duty of care extending overseas, and not just applying in the UK, travel risk management can be a key issue for organisations who have to plan vaccinations, antimalarials and required health documentation for staff. 

Published advice can be complicated and it is sometimes not clear what is meant by ‘recommended’ vaccinations.  It can also be hard to determine whether or not the area to which an employee will travel will make such health protection essential or not.  

Trying to research and evaluate the risk, as a caring and compassionate employer, but also to  try to avoid any litigation further down the line, is not just time-consuming but also almost impossible for a business that is not an expert in the field.  With corporate liability extending to omissions as well as negligence, it is vital to get this aspect of risk management right.

The other issue with all of this is that each individual comes with their own medical history and what is correct advice for one member of staff will not be accurate for another.  With medical drug contra-indications to consider, and factors such as pregnancy that might affect advice, it can be a minefield.  

The result, even when working with most travel clinics or through a GP’s private service, is often a cover-all-bases approach, advising that vaccinations and/or antimalarials are taken, where medically possible.  This may seem a reasonable tack to take but, as the cost of these treatments can run to hundreds of pounds per course, businesses could be wasting money on vaccinations and treatments that are simply not required, according to the employee’s itinerary or the season of travel.

Then there is the question of ethics.  If an employee is not happy about having vaccinations in principle, but recognise they have to do so in order to carry out a corporate brief, issues could later emerge, if they discover there was no valid reason for them to have had a vaccination.

Pinpoint Travel Health offers the solution to all of this.  Its Travel Health Brief service offers pinpoint precision within travel health planning, allowing a business to plot an employee’s exact itinerary and receive a report that will itemise which, if any, vaccinations or antimalarials are required, for that particular individual and with their medical history.

Over and above this, rather than simply offering employers software managed by a web team, Pinpoint Travel Health’s data is managed and monitored by trained clinical professionals, on an ongoing basis. The company is headed by ;eading experts in the field of travel health, providing a good basis of trust for any business wanting to get this aspect of risk management right.

The detail behind itinerary planning can go right down to city, hotel of even a conference centre. Every touchpoint that a business traveller has, within a destination or across several different countries, is automatically built into the production of each personalised health brief.

Importantly, the Pinpoint Travel Health Brief will also flag up if a business traveller requires a certain vaccination purely because they have travelled through another country, enroute to a place in which they are then doing business.

The individual member of staff’s Travel Health Brief is swiftly created.  It just requires whoever is taking the task on board, to fill in the relevant trip details, zoom in on destinations or places to be visited, or use digital mapping to plot out an entire trip.

Screening questions assess when the employee is travelling, to where, their age, activities during their trip and any health conditions, including pregnancy, allergies and current medications.  All of this then generates the personalised report, highlighting any diseases they could encounter and what antimalarials might be suitable.

In the case where an employee is pregnant but is not obliged to reveal that at their particular stage of pregnancy, organising their own Travel Health Brief can give greater privacy within the corporate environment.  Again, this could prevent any future litigation.

Once the Travel Health Brief comprehensive report is generated, it can be utilised by a travel health clinic, who can arrange and administer all jabs and medications with accuracy and speed.  They do not have to waste time trying to research what is required, or duplicate data input. The Travel Health Brief even details which clinics are closest to the corporate traveller.

Furthermore, business travel insurance should not be invalidated on the basis of vaccinations of antimalarials that were not in place. The Travel Health Brief provides an accurate and bespoke assessment of the traveller’s risk, which can prevent insurance wrangles later down the line.

Pinpoint Travel Health founder and director, Andrew Halliday, says: “Travel health is a major part of risk management for those enterprises who do business overseas, whether their staff are driving imports or exports, or simply visiting overseas exhibitions, conferences or trade fairs.

“It is also an area riddled with confusion and unnecessary expenditure, which leads to employees often having vaccinations they do not actually require. That in itself raises ethical considerations.  It also leads to a loss in productivity, given the time the employee has to take out of the business when going to clinics for vaccinations or antimalarial treatments. 

“The answer is to get it right, produce a spot-on assessment of what an individual corporate traveller, on an individual itinerary, requires and act according to high-level medical intelligence provided by health authorities worldwide.  This is what Pinpoint Travel Health allows you to do, simply by ordering a Travel Health Brief.”

At a cost of just £15 (inc VAT) per Travel Health Brief, it makes great sense for businesses to use this service and put accuracy at the heart of their travel risk management planning.  To get a Travel Health Brief today, all an employee need do is head to https://www.pinpointtravelhealth.com

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Editors notes

PinPoint Travel Health is an advanced software-driven travel health and vaccination platform that helps any traveller stay healthy during their exploration of the world. It provides provides comprehensive and personalised Travel Health Briefs. These equip travellers with all of the essential information and recommendations specific to their travel destination, no matter how remote or off-the-beaten-track. it includes potential hazards associated with the destination or itinerary. It also lists all recommended and required vaccinations and uses advanced algorithms to check the clinical appropriateness of vaccines and antimalarials, so as to prevent unwanted drug interactions with existing medications.