WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) and a group of bipartisan senators called on the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to improve, automate and modernize COVID-19 data collection and management, as communities across the country grapple with how to reopen as safely as possible. In a letter sent to Secretary Azar and Dr. Redfield, the lawmakers specifically called on the agencies to harness technologically advanced systems and build on existing data sources in order to provide public health officials and community leaders with more accurate, real-time information as they make critical decisions about reopening.
Unfortunately, recent reports have shown that case reporting and contact tracing across the country are being hampered by a fragmented health system and antiquated technology, including manual entry of patients’ data and results and sharing of such results through paper and pencil or fax. In Texas, some patients were having to wait l0 days to find out if they had been infected with coronavirus because their results were being faxed to public health officials and then entered into a database by hand.
“During an emergency such as the current pandemic, scaling up and using existing systems to the greatest extent possible can improve data collection and contact tracing efforts,” the lawmakers wrote.“We therefore ask that you and your colleagues utilize and build on existing data sources, such as electronic health record (EHR) and laboratory information management systems (LIMS), claims databases, and other automated systems to provide government leaders, public health officials, community leaders, and others with actionable, easy-to-interpret data from a wide-ranging set of sources. Data generated by contact tracing, syndromic surveillance, and large-scale testing can help inform decisions on how to safely reopen communities and bring economies back online. Modernizing and automating data collection should augment detection, testing, and contact tracing plans, while also helping to prevent and improve the management of new outbreaks.”
The Senators continued, “Fortunately, software-based systems providing data management for state public health entities and major testing laboratories already exist, and they are more efficient and accurate while reducing the burden of excess paperwork. For example, North Carolina and Florida have taken steps to modernize and improve patients’ Covid-19 test results and other infectious disease symptoms. In Florida, nurses can register patients for Covid testing in the field using tablet computers that are connected to a HIPAA compliant cloud. By managing the patient and order requisition information electronically, lab processing time is reduced and transcription errors are eliminated.”
The letter is available here.
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