A State Health Department and Health Information Exchange Partnership: an Effective Collaboration for a Data-Driven Response for COVID-19 Contact Tracing in Maryland

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Sex Transm Dis
• Personal Author:
  Feldman, Katherine A. ; Hanks, Andrew ; Williams, Thelonious W. ; Blouse, Brandon ; Babcock, Carly ; Goode, Alexandra ; Dowling, Steve ; Thakuria, Ayanjyoti ; Teichmann, Jeremy ; Aljalahma, Humoud ; Pearlowitz, Marcia
• Description:
  Background
  
  Accurate, complete, timely data were essential to effective contact tracing for COVID-19. Maryland Department of Health partnered with Maryland’s designated health information exchange, Chesapeake Regional Information System for Our Patients (CRISP), to establish data enhancement processes that provided the foundation for Maryland’s successful contact tracing program.
  
  Methods
  
  Hourly, electronic positive COVID-19 test results were routed through CRISP to the contact tracing data platform. CRISP matched reports against its master patient index to enhance the record with demographic, locating, fatality, vaccination, and hospitalization data. Records were de-duplicated and flagged if associated with a congregate setting, select state universities, or recent international travel. Chi-square tests were used to assess if CRISP-added phone numbers resulted in better contact tracing outcomes.
  
  Results
  
  During June 15, 2020-September 1, 2021, CRISP pushed 531,094 records to the state’s contact tracing data platform within an hour of receipt; of those eligible for investigation, 99% had a phone number. CRISP matched 521,731 (98%) records to their master patient index, allowing for deduplication and enrichment. CRISP flagged 15,615 cases in congregate settings and 3,304 cases as university students; these records were immediately routed for outbreak investigation. Records with an added phone number were significantly more likely to be successfully reached compared to cases with no added phone number (p=0.01).
  
  Conclusions
  
  CRISP enhanced COVID-19 electronic laboratory reports with a near-instant impact on public health actions. The partnership and data processing workflows can serve as a blueprint for data modernization in public health agencies across the United States.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Contact Tracing COVID-19 Health Information Exchange Humans Maryland SARS-CoV-2 United States
• Keywords:
  Data Quality Electronic Data Processing Health Information Interoperability Public Health Informatics
• Source:
  Sex Transm Dis. 50(8):S34-S40
• Pubmed ID:
  36098564
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC9992453
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  NU50CK000506/CC/CDC HHSUnited States/ ; NU50CK000506/ImCDC/Intramural CDC HHSUnited States/
• Volume:
  50
• Issue:
  8
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:c7e9ef55cda7379b28a0d9e03061912d0daa5a75b90d62a987256c669c71a0132e80e27e86153ce9bb76040cd292b57d8ff23922aafeea5b0422972091c9e260
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/125649/cdc_125649_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 712.75 KB ]