MTU Flex Portal FAQs

The MTU Flex Portal is where you will find important forms related to the University’s return-to-campus plan, such as the COVID-19 Daily Symptom Monitoring Form and the Report a COVID-19 Test Form. More forms will be added as we continue to implement our return-to-campus plan.

During Step Two, the MTU Flex Portal is accessible to all University employees.

Please send your questions to mtuflex@mtu.edu.

Good news! By answering the questions in the Daily Symptom Monitoring Form, you are already self-monitoring.

Daily symptom monitoring is a best practice for returning people to a safe environment. At this time, it is required by the state and recommended by the CDC. As we continue to monitor scientific developments related to COVID-19, we will continually update our protocols to align with the best available information.

Yes. You must complete the COVID-19 Daily Symptom Monitoring Form every day before you come to campus. This is a requirement for all individuals. HuskyCard tap access to buildings will reset at midnight each night. If you do not fill out the form each morning, your access to buildings will not turn on.

Michigan Tech is following current CDC guidelines regarding symptoms of COVID-19. If you are experiencing symptoms the CDC considers potentially related to COVID-19, you will not be allowed on campus. We will provide instructions on obtaining a COVID-19 test and contact information for local medical providers, and we will rely on CDC recommendations to determine when it is safe for you to return to campus. We encourage you to work or study remotely until you are able to safely return.

Yes, you should accurately report your symptoms. If you have a chronic condition that causes you to experience symptoms the CDC considers related to COVID-19, you have these options:

• If you are able to work remotely, you can continue to do so.
• If you believe your symptoms are not related to COVID-19, you can work with your medical provider and Tech to determine the best way for you to accomplish daily symptom monitoring. (This process is very individualized, and advice from the medical community indicates that a medical provider must be involved in order to both advise of the risk to the community and educate regarding symptom monitoring.)

Yes, if you would like. You must fill it out each day before you come to campus, but you can also fill it out more often—for example, if you leave campus and return later that day, or if you start to feel ill.

You are required to answer honestly when you fill out the symptom monitoring form each day. You will need to agree to do so before you can use the Daily Symptom Monitoring Form. If you choose to be dishonest, it will be handled in the same manner as other misconduct.

The information you submit in the symptom monitoring form will be used to protect the health and safety of the Michigan Tech community. The fact that an individual reported symptoms will be shared with Upper Great Lakes Houghton Family Health Center, which can provide testing for faculty, staff, and students. Individuals may choose to be tested through their own medical provider rather than Upper Great Lakes. Individuals may also decline to be tested, although this may require them to remain absent from campus for a longer period of time.

If an employee reports a symptom related to COVID-19, supervisors will receive an email indicating that a specific employee has been asked to remain away from campus, and that the employee may work remotely, if possible. Supervisors will not be informed of the specific symptoms reported. 

The data is retained in a secure environment. The data will be available to epidemiologists, the Western Upper Peninsula Health Department, and the University, solely for the purpose of enhancing the health and safety of the University community—for example, to determine areas where increasing asymptomatic testing may reveal the presence of COVID-19 on campus. The data will be treated as private, confidential data, utilized only for health and safety considerations.

That depends on how long the COVID-19 pandemic lasts and the data’s utility to the local health community in putting appropriate health and safety measures in place. It is likely that the aggregate data will be retained for some time. However, individual data will not be retained after its utility to the health of the institution and the community is exhausted.

Since Michigan Tech is not a health care provider, HIPAA does not consider us to be a covered entity. Nonetheless, Michigan Tech takes the privacy concerns related to this information seriously. The risks presented to the community by the COVID-19 pandemic mean that employers must ask more of employees in order to safeguard their health and the health of those they serve. For this reason, symptom monitoring is not only encouraged by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), it is presently required by state order for anyone Michigan Tech allows to return to campus. Many employers are physically taking the temperatures of their employees. Michigan Tech has chosen a solution that relies more heavily on personal responsibility, asking employees (and eventually students) to perform the monitoring themselves.

If cases of COVID-19 are confirmed on campus, an epidemiologist, medical doctor, and public health officials from the WUPHD may review aggregate data regarding where positive cases are appearing. During this review, it may be necessary to examine how case locations align with symptom reporting. This will be done in order to adjust Michigan Tech’s asymptomatic testing program, which we hope to initiate in Step Two of the MTU Flex Return to Campus Plan. 

Individuals who report symptoms considered to be related to COVID-19 will receive a referral to UGL. We are exploring whether to provide limited additional contact information to UGL for those individuals in order to make testing more easily available. Privacy issues are part of these discussions. Your Michigan Tech email address may be shared, and you could be asked to provide consent to share your cell phone number. However, your home address will remain private.

No. Medical providers involved in testing and WUPHD are governed by HIPAA and are legally bound to protect the privacy of your health information. HIPAA violations can carry both monetary and criminal penalties.

Any conversations between UGL and Michigan Tech regarding symptoms will utilize aggregate data only. COVID-19 is a reportable medical condition, and positive tests will be reported by medical providers to the WUPHD. This reporting is the only data regarding individuals WUPHD will receive. Close contacts of those individuals will be identified via contact tracing and asked to self-isolate.

The Western Upper Peninsula Health Department (WUPHD) could request access to the data. If such a request were made, it would only be granted to meet public health goals, and only aggregate data would be provided, except as required for contact tracing.

At this time, WUPHD has not communicated any intention to request data access.

No. If you indicate that you have a symptom the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) considers to be related to COVID-19, you will be referred to Upper Great Lakes Houghton Family Health Center (UGL) for a test. You can choose not to be tested, or to contact another health care provider for a test instead of UGL. Regardless of whether you receive a test, Michigan Tech will rely on CDC guidance to determine when it is safe for a symptomatic person to return to campus.

No.