Automated Digital Notification of COVID-19 Diagnoses Through Text and Email Messaging — North Carolina, December 2020–January 2021

Details

• Journal Article:
  Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)
• Personal Author:
  Farrell, Laura ; Almond, Crystal R. ; Porterfield, Deborah S. ; Mobley, Victoria ; Jones, Sydney A. ; Smelyanskaya, Marina ; Samoff, Erika
• Description:
  During October 3, 2020-January 9, 2021, North Carolina experienced a 400% increase in daily reported COVID-19 cases (1). To handle the increased number of cases and rapidly notify persons receiving a positive SARS-CoV-2 test result (patients), North Carolina state and local health departments moved from telephone call notification only to telephone call plus automated text and email notification (digital notification) beginning on December 24, 2020. Overall, among 200,258 patients, 142,975 (71%) were notified by telephone call or digital notification within the actionable period (10 days from their Diagnosis date)* during January 2021, including at least 112,543 (56%) notified within 24 hours of report to North Carolina state and local health departments, a significantly higher proportion than the 25,905 of 175,979 (15%) notified within 24 hours during the preceding month (p<0.001). Differences in text notification by age, race, and ethnicity were observed. Automated digital notification is a feasible, rapid and efficient method to support timely outreach to patients, provide guidance on how to isolate, access resources, inform close contacts, and increase the efficiency of case investigation staff members.
• Subjects:
  Adolescent Adult Aged Automation Child Child, Preschool CoronaVirus Infections COVID-19 COVID-19 Testing Disease Notification Electronic Mail Humans Infant Infant, Newborn Middle Aged Text Messaging Time Factors Young Adult

  More +
• Source:
  MMWR Morbidity Mortal Weekly Rep. 70(46):1603-1607
• Series:
  Weekly Report: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)
• DOI:
  http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/MMWRmm7046a3
• ISSN:
  0149-2195 (print) ; 1545-861X (digital)
• Pubmed ID:
  34793421
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC8601409
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  North Carolina
• Pages in Document:
  5 pdf pages
• Volume:
  70
• Issue:
  46
• Collection(s):
  Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:6518c33e2412b5e94ac5c96a22c76bf32b1d62259b5798d7ed7e22cc4bf57955ee427d58d255292f06c91da24e8b425130a65be89f1e0a6617065b6f9b02bc0b
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/112211/cdc_112211_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 152.47 KB ]