Novel Approach to Support Rapid Data Collection, Management, and Visualization During the COVID-19 Outbreak Response in the World Health Organization African Region: Development of a Data Summarization and Visualization Tool (Preprint)

Abstract

BACKGROUND The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has created unprecedented challenges to systematic and timely sharing of COVID-19 field data collection and management. WHO is working with health partners on the rollout and implementation of the robust electronic field data collection platform. The delay in deployment and rollout of this electronic platform in the WHO African region as a consequence of the application of large-scale public health and social measures including movement restrictions and geographical area quarantine left a gap between data collection and management. This gave rise to the need to develop interim data management solutions in order to accurately monitor the evolution of the pandemic and support the deployment of appropriate public health interventions. OBJECTIVE To review the design, development and implementation of the COVID-19 Data Summarization and Visualization (DSV) tool as a rapidly deployable solution to fill this critical data collection gap as an interim solution. METHODS This paper reviews the processes undertaken to research and develop a tool to bridge the data collection gap between the onset of a COVID-19 outbreak and the start of data collection using a prioritized electronic platform such as Go.Data in WHO African region. RESULTS In anticipation of the implementation of a prioritized tool for field data collection, the DSV tool was deployed in eighteen (18) Member States for COVID-19 outbreak data management. We highlight preliminary findings and lessons learned from the DSV tool deployment in the WHO African region. CONCLUSIONS We developed a rapidly deployable tool for COVID-19 data collection and visualization in the WHO African region. The lessons drawn on this experience offer an opportunity to learn and apply these to improve future similar public health informatics initiatives in an outbreak or similar humanitarian setting, particularly in low and middle-income countries.