Opportunity and Caution
There are signs that Canada and other jurisdictions are responding by
adapting existing information systems and developing new ones to connect
covid-19 patient information from different health care sectors. In our
local jurisdiction, all hospitals worked together to create a standard
line listing that is transmitted to the regional public health
department where is it merged with their information systems. The public
health information system serves as the central point for covid-19
information and forms the basis of contract tracing, surveillance and
modelling. The availability of robust and integrated hospital data
improves surveillance and planning, including modelling future hospital
capacity in the event of surges.
There is a tremendous effort to organize covid-19 hospital data for
research. These initiatives can inform how hospitals and public health
can work together to generate integrated information systems that are
needed to control and plan for covid-19 in the coming year or more.