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. 2020 Dec 9;27(12):1964-1967.
doi: 10.1093/jamia/ocaa184.

Innovative use of health informatics to augment contact tracing during the COVID-19 pandemic in an acute hospital

Narayan Venkataraman  1 , Beng Hoong Poon  1 , Chuin Siau  2
Affiliations

Innovative use of health informatics to augment contact tracing during the COVID-19 pandemic in an acute hospital

Narayan Venkataraman et al. J Am Med Inform Assoc. .

Abstract

This case report describes the innovative design and build of an algorithm that integrates available data from separate hospital-based informatics systems, which perform different daily functions to augment the contact-tracing process of COVID-19 patients by identifying exposed neighboring patients and healthcare workers and assessing their risk. Prior to the establishment of the algorithm, contact-tracing teams comprising 6 members would spend up to 10 hours each to complete contact tracing for 5 new COVID-19 patients. With the augmentation by the algorithm, we observed ≥ 60% savings in overall man-hours needed for contact tracing when there were 5 or more daily new cases through a time-motion study and Monte Carlo simulation. This improvement to the hospital's contact-tracing process supported more expeditious and comprehensive downstream contact-tracing activities as well as improved manpower utilization in contact tracing.

Keywords: COVID-19; contact tracing, informatics system; data mining algorithm, improved manpower utilization.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Contact-tracing process in the hospital and its interface with the Ministry of Health.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
COVID-19 Contract Tracing Algorithm Schema.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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