Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Jul 1;27(9):1476-1487.
doi: 10.1093/jamia/ocaa141.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) information management: addressing national health-care and public health needs for standardized data definitions and codified vocabulary for data exchange

Macarena Garcia  1 , Nikolay Lipskiy  1 , James Tyson  1 , Roniqua Watkins  1 , E Stein Esser  1 , Teresa Kinley  1
Affiliations

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) information management: addressing national health-care and public health needs for standardized data definitions and codified vocabulary for data exchange

Macarena Garcia et al. J Am Med Inform Assoc. .

Abstract

Objective: The 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak progressed rapidly from a public health (PH) emergency of international concern (World Health Organization [WHO], 30 January 2020) to a pandemic (WHO, 11 March 2020). The declaration of a national emergency in the United States (13 March 2020) necessitated the addition and modification of terminology related to COVID-19 and development of the disease's case definition. During this period, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and standard development organizations released guidance on data standards for reporting COVID-19 clinical encounters, laboratory results, cause-of-death certifications, and other surveillance processes for COVID-19 PH emergency operations. The CDC COVID-19 Information Management Repository was created to address the need for PH and health-care stakeholders at local and national levels to easily obtain access to comprehensive and up-to-date information management resources.

Materials and methods: We introduce the clinical and health-care informatics community to the CDC COVID-19 Information Management Repository: a new, national COVID-19 information management tool. We provide a description of COVID-19 informatics resources, including data requirements for COVID-19 data reporting.

Results: We demonstrate the CDC COVID-19 Information Management Repository's categorization and management of critical COVID-19 informatics documentation and standards. We also describe COVID-19 data exchange standards, forms, and specifications.

Conclusions: This information will be valuable to clinical and PH informaticians, epidemiologists, data analysts, standards developers and implementers, and information technology managers involved in the development of COVID-19 situational awareness and response reporting and analytics.

Keywords: COVID-19; data standards; electronic data exchange; emergency preparedness and response; pandemic.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
The CDC COVID-19 information management resources repository (https://phinvads.cdc.gov/vads/SearchVocab.action). Abbreviations: CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; COVID-19, 2019 novel coronavirus disease.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Infographic for the CSTE standardized surveillance case definition and national notification for COVID-19. Interim-20-ID-01. Abbreviations: COVID-19, 2019 novel coronavirus disease; CSTE, Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists; FDA, Food and Drug Administration; SARS-CoV-2, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Infographic for COVID-19 ICD-10-CM coding and reporting guidelines, 1 April–30 September 2020. Abbreviations: COVID-19, 2019 novel coronavirus disease; ICD-10-CM, International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, Clinical Modification.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
ONC ISA interoperability for COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic: vocabulary standards, artifacts, and value sets. Adopted from HealthIT.gov. Accessed 6 May 2020. Abbreviations: COVID-19, 2019 novel coronavirus disease; ISA, Interoperability Standards Advisory; ONC, Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
Representing COVID-19 mapping layers through the CDC COVID-19 data tracker. Data are as of 10 June 2020. Abbreviations: CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; COVID-19, 2019 novel coronavirus disease.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Public Health Information Network Vocabulary Access and Distribution System (PHIN VADS). https://phinvadsstg.cdc.gov/vads/SearchHome.action Accessed 5 April 2020.
    1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. PHIN vocabulary and access distribution system. https://www.cdc.gov/phin/tools/phinvads/ Accessed 10 April 2020.
    1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. COVID-19 surveillance and data analytics. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/php/open-america/surveillance-... Accessed 10 April 2020.
    1. EMS.gov. NEMSIS. https://www.ems.gov/projects/nemsis.html Accessed 10 April 2020.
    1. National Emergency Medical Services Information System. V3 data dictionaries and XSD. https://nemsis.org/technical-resources/version-3/version-3-data-dictiona... Accessed 10 April 2020.