Page 48 - FCW, July 2020

Ideas
Using technology
to speed COVID-19
contact tracing
Digital contact tracing makes it easier for public health officials to manage the outbreak while protecting users’ privacy
BY STEPHANIE KANOWITZ
As communities start down the road to reopening after pandemic- related shutdowns, public health officials are urging caution about the coronavirus’ continued spread and turning to digitized contact tracing to help minimize the threat.
Deploying trained case workers to identify and contact those exposed to a communicable disease isn’t new — it’s been used to track smallpox, HIV and SARS, for example — but using technology for the job is. A recent report from Johns Hopkins University provides tips for public health agencies that are using digital contact-tracing tools, such as ensuring that the technology’s design is flexible enough to change along with conditions, data is available to health professionals in a de-identified form and the solution has a base set of features to protect privacy while allowing users to opt into sharing other information, such as location data.
“These technologies have significant promise,” the report states. “They also raise important ethical, legal and
governance challenges that require comprehensive analysis in order to support decision-making.”
Mapping potential outbreaks
Although privacy concerns have limited the use of digital contact tracing in the United States, companies are beginning to provide tools with robust privacy protections.
Salesforce officials said more than 30 states are using the company’s customer relationship management platform for COVID-related solutions. In addition, New York City is working with Salesforce to set up a call center and customer relationship and case management system for tracking people who might have been infected. The city’s Test and Trace Corps deployed the system at the beginning of June and has been monitoring thousands of cases.
Others are tapping the company’s Work.com suite of tools, released in May. It creates maps of contacts and locations to monitor potential interactions and outbreaks. It also helps public health agencies manually,
securely and privately trace health and relationship contacts of those exposed to an infectious disease.
Rhode Island was the first to work with the company on developing tools that would enable officials to more easily follow up with people who test positive for COVID-19.
The suite has three main components for three categories of users. The first category is the public. A person who is experiencing symptoms can go to the public health agency’s website and engage with a chatbot, which can understand, based on the person’s responses, whether he or she might have COVID-19. The bot can then help the person reach virtual assistance or set up an appointment to get tested.
In addition, the person can fill out a form to share his or her contact information and the names and contact information of anyone with whom he or she was in close proximity before feeling sick. That information shows up in the agency’s database so that public health workers can alert contact tracers to reach out to those people to
44 July 2020 FCW.COM