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. Specialists agree that this was a hard-won victory of Canada’s public well being response. Whereas political and demographic realities have been a significant component, an unsung hero is the information modernization efforts that helped Canada observe and include the sudden rise in infections and meet the demand for public well being providers.

In the case of public well being emergencies, Canadian authorities have lengthy been dedicated to studying from crises, making use of expertise and remodeling methods to place each state and federal companies for fulfillment when the following problem arrives. Even inside imperfect political realities, public well being organizations world wide can study and emulate Canada’s response by means of knowledge modernization, probably saving hundreds of thousands of lives within the subsequent public well being emergency.

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

After the SARS outbreak in 2003, federal and provincial governments in Canada acknowledged that their present public well being methods and IT have been insufficient. Canadian authorities proactively labored with IBM to develop an answer generally known as IBM Panorama, an end-to-end public well being illness surveillance and immunization system. This resolution 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 methods that may 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, ailments and circumstances.

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

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, well being companies have been instantly thrown into the highlight. Instantly, public well being companies needed to cope with:

• A novel illness for which no requirements (resembling case definitions) existed
• A quickly evolving illness the place variants, indicators and signs, and interventions modified shortly
• Excessive case volumes and intensive contact tracing, which necessitated employment of latest public well being employees to satisfy demand (with restricted coaching obtainable)
• New vaccines and evolving protocols, resembling mixing and matching doses with totally different vaccines
• The necessity to talk well being dangers to the general public based mostly on quickly creating knowledge and unsure interpretations

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

Given international journey and local weather change, it’s affordable to anticipate that one other pandemic (and the issues listed above) could possibly 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 essential knowledge, investing in sensible, succesful and versatile knowledge modernization methods, and getting 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 resolution that includes a person-centered public well being knowledge mannequin, which meant it captured the requisite data wanted for public well being professionals to forecast and establish rising developments 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 knowledge mannequin that gives related terminology, relationships and fashions.

Lesson 2: Make key choices with high-quality knowledge.

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

Lesson 3: Deal with knowledge volumes with system integration.

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

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