As organizations plan to return to in-person meetings and incentive travel, the Incentive Research Foundation (IRF) has issued its “Health Information & Attendee Privacy: Getting Back to Meetings and Incentives Safely” report that discusses policies, privacy and onsite procedures to help set up meetings and incentive travel programs for success.

The IRF is a private, nonprofit foundation that funds research studies and develops products serving all segments of the global incentive industry.

“Getting back to meetings, events and incentives is important for our economy, our industry and for businesses across the globe. Doing so in a way that makes health and safety a top priority will serve to bring meetings back faster and will instill confidence in attendees,” says Stephanie Harris, IRF president. “With increased health protocols and an intensified focus on collecting personal health information from attendees, the meeting organizer has a duty to safeguard both the privacy and the risk of exposure for the attendee.”

The report offers insights into hosting safe events with information provided by Dr. Jonathan Spero of InHouse Physicians and Brenda Rivers of SafeLLC. Information includes health security plans, such as protocols for health screening, temperature checks, onsite COVID-19 testing, contact tracing, onsite medical care and onsite procedures; communicating policies and expectations, data collection, attendee consent and appropriate questions to ask attendees when collecting protected information; data privacy standards such as HIPAA, GDPR and California law; and organizers’ duty of care, such the obligations of the meeting planner, attendees, venues and entities used during the event.

The full report is available here.