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 component, an unsung hero is the info modernization efforts that helped Canada monitor and include the sudden rise in infections and meet the demand for public well being providers.
In relation to public well being emergencies, Canadian authorities have lengthy been dedicated to studying from crises, making use of expertise and remodeling techniques to place each state and federal businesses for fulfillment when the subsequent problem arrives. Even inside imperfect political realities, public well being organizations around the globe can study and emulate Canada’s response by knowledge modernization, doubtlessly 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 techniques and IT had 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 answer would later be key to Canadian public well being businesses’ response to COVID-19.
In the meantime, throughout the US, public well being officers continued to make use of paper-based techniques 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 businesses 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 features, together with case investigation and outbreak administration, in addition to immunization and vaccine inventory management.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, well being businesses had been instantly thrown into the highlight. All of a sudden, public well being businesses needed to take care of:
- A novel illness for which no requirements (reminiscent of case definitions) existed
- A quickly evolving illness the place variants, indicators and signs, and interventions modified rapidly
- Excessive case volumes and intensive contact tracing, which necessitated employment of recent public well being employees to fulfill demand (with restricted coaching out there)
- New vaccines and evolving protocols, reminiscent of 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 had been geared up with Panorama had been higher ready to reply to the COVID-19 pandemic. In contrast to many US counterparts, that they had a strong enterprise-grade answer that was particularly designed for public well being. This answer had the potential to handle massive 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) may very well be proper across the nook.
This time, the US can study from the experiences and preparedness of Canada’s public well being businesses. A profitable public well being response to a future pandemic will depend on accumulating and managing important knowledge, investing in good, succesful and versatile knowledge modernization techniques, and making ready individuals with the right information and abilities.
Lesson 1: Use an information mannequin constructed for public well being.
Canadian provinces used a illness surveillance answer that includes a person-centered public well being knowledge mannequin, which meant it captured the requisite info wanted for public well being professionals to forecast and establish rising traits and outbreaks (in addition to analyze interventions and report back to stakeholders). US public well being businesses 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 selections with high-quality knowledge.
Excessive-quality knowledge is the bedrock of any public well being response. US public well being businesses ought to search options that ingest knowledge in a number of codecs and have built-in processes for knowledge cleaning to take care of the integrity of knowledge. Information silos typically happen when knowledge will not be shared or accessible, resulting in workarounds and incomplete info. It’s essential to determine knowledge sharing agreements upfront of an emergency.
Lesson 3: Deal with knowledge volumes with system integration.
Each Canadian and US public well being businesses had been overwhelmed by enormous volumes of knowledge in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. US businesses invested emergency COVID-19 funding into new case administration and get in touch with coaching options. Nonetheless, these had been typically stand-alone options that didn’t deal with the underlying problems with siloed, incomplete or duplicative knowledge.
Canada used built-in public well being info techniques, like Panorama, for seamless knowledge ingestion, cleaning and import processing. By way of techniques integration by way of open APIs and different technique of integrating knowledge into affected person well being data, this served as the one supply of reality for all publicity, case investigation, contact tracing, outbreak administration and case administration info for every resident.
Lesson 4: Undertake a cloud-native structure to make sure elastic scalability.
Lots of the investments in new expertise options from the COVID-19 pandemic are actually being sundown. For sustainable investments, public well being businesses want the power to scale knowledge and data techniques to the info volumes skilled throughout steady-state operations in addition to throughout emergency responses. Investing in a cloud-native answer provides a versatile structure and a future-proof answer that permits the general public well being company to have elastic scalability.
Lesson 5: Prioritize agile configurability to adapt to creating illness eventualities.
Canadian public well being businesses benefited from IBM Panorama’s capacity to serve all 100+ reportable illnesses and situations. When the novel coronavirus began to emerge from lab checks, indicators and signs led epidemiologists to code this knowledge in a car parking zone inside Panorama, till LOINC and SNOWMED formally coded COVID-19. This sort of configurability is critical to adapt to rising illnesses and situations, as an alternative of techniques that solely serve single illnesses and situations.
Lesson 6: Empower finish customers to reply quickly with a straightforward, customizable system.
The general public well being area has skilled a big turnover as individuals retire or expertise burnout. Information modernization initiatives afford public well being businesses the chance to draw new expertise by providing options utilizing human-centered design. These options use augmented intelligence, guided workflows, machine studying and even take into account generative AI to embed area experience inside workflows and advance the effectivity and coaching of recent customers.
Lesson 7: Use storytelling to interact stakeholders and the general public.
Whereas epidemiologists are geared up to report and analyze knowledge and talk it to different scientists, accessible storytelling is essential to fostering larger belief and impression when translating science into public communications and public coverage. In Canada, there are “knowledge storytelling” trainings for public well being professionals that empower public well being info officers and state well being officers to border knowledge insights to maximise public understanding and motion.
Create a proactive knowledge modernization plan to arrange for the surprising
COVID-19 revealed alternatives to vary the best way public well being is managed, in addition to the necessity to put money into expertise. With the CDC Information Modernization Initiative and Public Health Infrastructure Grants, now’s the time for US public well being businesses to study from fellow public well being businesses, like these in Canada, as they modernize.
By taking a proactive knowledge modernization method, US public well being businesses can handle steady-state operations and be higher ready to reply to the unknowns of the subsequent public well being emergency.
Incorporate these lessons into your data modernization journey