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. 2023 Aug 1;50(8S Suppl 1):S41-S47.
doi: 10.1097/OLQ.0000000000001712. Epub 2022 Sep 26.

Digital Point Solutions for Extending Contact Tracing Capacity

Anicia Santos  1 , Gloria Nuñez, Stacy La, Jammal H Dorsey, Swati Shah Patel, Karen G Luk, Kristen Brillantes, Rebecca Birnbaum, Melissa Boyette, Eleanor Peters Bergquist, Amanda McClelland
Affiliations

Digital Point Solutions for Extending Contact Tracing Capacity

Anicia Santos et al. Sex Transm Dis. .

Abstract

Background: Initial COVID-19 surges in the United States created a need for technology to supplement human resources to increase efficiency and efficacy.

Methods: Resolve to Save Lives worked with jurisdictions to co-design four technology solutions-Epi Viaduct data pipeline, Epi Contacts contact elicitation webform, Epi Locator contact information search plugin, and Epi Viewpoint case management system (CMS)-to expand the capacity of case investigation and contact tracing (CI/CT) teams. We assessed impact on reducing CI/CT time intervals for COVID-19 using product data and user feedback.

Results: Epi Viaduct accelerated the transfer of approximately 7,400,000 records from an electronic laboratory reporting system in a single jurisdiction to the respective CMS from more than 2.5 hours to less than 1 minute and reduced time to remove duplicate laboratory results from multiple days to less than 6 hours. Epi Contacts focused on increasing the efficacy of contact elicitation, and during a single period, 10% of index cases (9,440 of 96,319) completed Epi Contacts for a total of approximately 18,700 contacts elicited. User interviews indicated the tool increased speed of CI/CT workflows. In total, 134,410 searches were run in Epi Locator by 7320 distinct users-75% of which returned 1 or more person matches. A simple CMS, Epi Viewpoint, was developed and completed, but not deployed.

Conclusions: Systems to mount large-scale population-based contact tracing programs were developed and implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic and can be adapted for CI/CT programs aiming to control the spread of other communicable diseases such as sexually transmitted diseases.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest and Sources of Funding: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Sample Epi Contacts mobile screens of the initial SMS message and pages from the webform.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Epi Locator auto-populated search page.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Epi Locator results display.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Epi Viewpoint 360° Person View.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Epi Viewpoint case investigation form.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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