Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) information management: addressing national health-care and public health needs for standardized data definitions and codified vocabulary for data exchange

Abstract

Abstract Objective The 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak progressed rapidly from a public health (PH) emergency of international concern (World Health Organization [WHO], 30 January 2020) to a pandemic (WHO, 11 March 2020). The declaration of a national emergency in the United States (13 March 2020) necessitated the addition and modification of terminology related to COVID-19 and development of the disease’s case definition. During this period, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and standard development organizations released guidance on data standards for reporting COVID-19 clinical encounters, laboratory results, cause-of-death certifications, and other surveillance processes for COVID-19 PH emergency operations. The CDC COVID-19 Information Management Repository was created to address the need for PH and health-care stakeholders at local and national levels to easily obtain access to comprehensive and up-to-date information management resources. Materials and Methods We introduce the clinical and health-care informatics community to the CDC COVID-19 Information Management Repository: a new, national COVID-19 information management tool. We provide a description of COVID-19 informatics resources, including data requirements for COVID-19 data reporting. Results We demonstrate the CDC COVID-19 Information Management Repository’s categorization and management of critical COVID-19 informatics documentation and standards. We also describe COVID-19 data exchange standards, forms, and specifications. Conclusions This information will be valuable to clinical and PH informaticians, epidemiologists, data analysts, standards developers and implementers, and information technology managers involved in the development of COVID-19 situational awareness and response reporting and analytics.