Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1348345
34 DATA ANALYTICS & INFORMATICS 'We're fighting COVID one-handed': 2 Mass General physicians on the need to strengthen data systems By Jackie Drees W hile the U.S. continues its widespread COVID-19 vaccination effort, there is still an urgent need to track virus transmission and strengthen national public health data systems to contain the spread, according to Louise Ivers, MD, and Wilfredo Matias, MD. Dr. Ivers, who serves as executive director at the Massa- chusetts General Hospital Center for Global Health in Boston, and Dr. Matias, a global health fellow at Mass General, called out fundamental weaknesses in the country's public health data systems, which are unable to capture accurate data on where, why and how the virus spreads in real time, they wrote in a Jan. 6 op-ed for Bos- ton radio station WBUR. "is type of analysis of how outbreaks are happening local- ly has critical implications for local health officials — it helps them fine-tune their interventions," Drs. Ivers and Matias wrote. "And yet, this key information is rarely available to local implementers in actionable reports in [Massachu- setts] because our public health data infrastructure was never designed to capture it and has not been appropriately upgraded to respond to it." State health boards use the Massachusetts Virtual Epidemi- ologic Network, known as MAVEN, to gather case details such as age, gender and race to track epidemic disease. e information from MAVEN is compiled and shared in daily statewide reports and weekly city-level reports, which Drs. Ivers and Matias said is too infrequent and late to be able to take any actions. Seven months aer the pandemic started, Massachusetts did begin reporting more granular data but only shared aggregate data for the whole state, according to the report. Data systems should be able to generate information that reflects the unique data needs of the local community, so officials can take specific actions tailored to best meet the needs of their communities. Drs. Ivers and Matias wrote that these systems should be able to "alert on transmis- sion hotspots in real-time, so that we don't have to wait over a week to see that cases are increasing in gyms," and they "should be integrated between central command and local response, removing the duplication of effort that parallel systems oen cause now." n UC Health, California health department to roll out COVID-19 data modeling system By Katie Adams U niversity of California Health and the California Depart- ment of Public Health will launch a data modeling con- sortium to help hospital administrators and public health officials make decisions based on timely, accurate insights. About 150 UC faculty members specializing in epidemiology, infectious diseases, economics, statistics, computer science, ecology and data modeling will work with data modelers and officials from the state's public health department to organize information that will help inform decisions about the state's pandemic response. The consortium, announced Feb. 9, will release short-term predic- tions for COVID-19 case rates, hospitalizations and intensive care unit occupancy. It will also offer scenario models that quantify the effects of possible public health measures, COVID-19 vaccine distribution strategies, modeling to better inform officials about the pandemic's economic effects and equity analytics for a better understanding of COVID-19 disparities. n Google search activity can help predict COVID-19 outbreaks, studies show By Katie Adams R esearchers are examining Google search data's potential to predict COVID-19 outbreaks so hospitals and public health departments can better anticipate case surges. A study published Feb. 8 in npj Digital Medicine analyzed Google searches for COVID-19 symptoms early in the pandemic, using the types of symptoms entered and frequency of such searches to predict peaks in COVID-19 cases up to 17 days in advance. The "COVID-19 score" developed in the study is updated weekly in Public Health England's pandemic surveillance reports. Another study published Feb. 4 in Social Network Analysis and Min- ing looked at search data's indications of mobility to see whether users were practicing COVID-19 lockdown precautions (such as searching for takeout) or living life as usual (such as searching for gyms or movie tickets). "Our goal was to capture the underlying social dynamics of an unprecedented pandemic using alternative data sources that are new to infectious disease epidemiology," Anasse Bari, PhD, one of the study authors, said in a news release. "When someone searches the closing time of a local bar or looks up directions to a local gym, they give some insight into what future risks they may have." n