7 public health data modernization lessons from Canada’s superior COVID-19 response

Over the primary three years of the COVID-19 pandemic, the US suffered over twice the deaths per capita as Canada — over 600,000 potentially avoidable deaths. Consultants agree that this was a hard-won victory of Canada’s public well being response. Whereas political and demographic realities had been a significant factor, an unsung hero is the information modernization efforts that helped Canada monitor and comprise the sudden rise in infections and meet the demand for public well being providers.

With regards to public well being emergencies, Canadian authorities have lengthy been dedicated to studying from crises, making use of expertise and remodeling programs to place each state and federal companies for fulfillment when the subsequent problem arrives. Even inside imperfect political realities, public well being organizations world wide can study and emulate Canada’s response by means of information modernization, doubtlessly saving tens of millions of lives within the subsequent public well being emergency.

A proactive strategy to the specter of a world well being disaster

After the SARS outbreak in 2003, federal and provincial governments in Canada acknowledged that their current public well being programs and IT had been insufficient. Canadian authorities proactively labored with IBM to develop an answer often known as IBM Panorama, an end-to-end public well being illness surveillance and immunization system. This answer would later be key to Canadian public well being companies’ response to COVID-19.

In the meantime, throughout the US, public well being officers continued to make use of paper-based programs that will later fail to maintain up with the explosive unfold of COVID-19.

Within the years following the SARS outbreak, the enterprise of public well being largely returned to steady-state focus. The day-to-day actions of public well being companies consisted primarily of coping with conventional vaccines, illnesses and situations.

Throughout this era, Panorama helped Canadian authorities take care of a variety of public well being capabilities, together with case investigation and outbreak administration, in addition to immunization and vaccine inventory management.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, well being companies had been instantly thrown into the highlight. All of a sudden, public well being companies needed to take care of:

• A novel illness for which no requirements (akin to case definitions) existed
• A quickly evolving illness the place variants, indicators and signs, and interventions modified shortly
• Excessive case volumes and in depth contact tracing, which necessitated employment of recent public well being staff to fulfill demand (with restricted coaching obtainable)
• New vaccines and evolving protocols, akin to mixing and matching doses with totally different vaccines
• The necessity to talk well being dangers to the general public based mostly on quickly growing information and unsure interpretations

Although each the US and Canada confronted unprecedented challenges throughout this time, the Canadian provinces that had been geared up with Panorama had been higher ready to reply to the COVID-19 pandemic. In contrast to many US counterparts, they’d a strong enterprise-grade answer that was particularly designed for public well being. This answer had the aptitude to handle giant scale immunization occasions and illness surveillance.

Given international journey and local weather change, it’s cheap to anticipate that one other pandemic (and the issues listed above) might be proper across the nook.

This time, the US can study from the experiences and preparedness of Canada’s public well being companies. A profitable public well being response to a future pandemic will depend on accumulating and managing important information, investing in good, succesful and versatile information modernization programs, and making ready folks with the correct data and abilities.

Lesson 1: Use a knowledge mannequin constructed for public well being.

Canadian provinces used a illness surveillance answer that includes a person-centered public well being information mannequin, which meant it captured the requisite data wanted for public well being professionals to forecast and determine rising traits and outbreaks (in addition to analyze interventions and report back to stakeholders). US public well being companies would profit from selecting illness surveillance options that include a confirmed, public well being information mannequin that provides related terminology, relationships and fashions.

Lesson 2: Make key selections with high-quality information.

Excessive-quality information is the bedrock of any public well being response. US public well being companies ought to search options that ingest information in a number of codecs and have built-in processes for information cleaning to take care of the integrity of knowledge. Information silos usually happen when information is just not shared or accessible, resulting in workarounds and incomplete data. It’s essential to ascertain information sharing agreements upfront of an emergency.

Lesson 3: Deal with information volumes with system integration.

Each Canadian and US public well being companies had been overwhelmed by big volumes of knowledge in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. US companies invested emergency COVID-19 funding into new case administration and make contact with coaching options. Nevertheless, these had been usually stand-alone options that didn’t handle the underlying problems with siloed, incomplete or duplicative information.

Canada used built-in public well being data programs, like Panorama, for seamless information ingestion, cleaning and import processing. By way of programs integration through open APIs and different technique of integrating information into affected person well being data, this served as the only supply of reality for all publicity, case investigation, contact tracing, outbreak administration and case administration data for every resident.