Online self-reporting tool piloted for Covid patients

eHealthNews.nz: Covid-19

Online self-reporting tool piloted for Covid patients

Tuesday, 1 February 2022

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NEWS - eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth

Covid tracing form A new online tool allowing Covid-positive people to self-report their symptoms, contacts and high-risk locations, is being piloted with one of the country’s largest contact tracing services.

Reach Aotearoa is trialling the COVID-19 contact tracing form, developed by Abletech for the Ministry of Health.

The tool is part of the governments three-phase approach to the Omicron outbreak, which involves greater use of technology in order to respond to large numbers of cases.

A Ministry spokesperson says technology has always played a part in the ongoing response to Covid-19 and the contact tracing form is the “next step to empowering people to self-manage in larger outbreaks, while easing the burden on the health system”.

During the pilot, only people who choose to use the form are given access to it, and only after they have completed an initial phone call with a case investigator. In Phase Two and Three of the Omicron response plan, it will be distributed to more cases.

“The form allows for contact tracing capacity to remain able to manage the number of cases with finite resources and focus on high risk and vulnerable cases,” the spokesperson says.

Users are texted a link and unique access code enabling them to share their information with the Ministry securely online – symptoms, household contact details, and information on high risk locations and close contacts - instead of doing an interview over the phone.

The form also allows people to upload their Bluetooth tracing keys and NZ COVID Tracer diary and is hosted on the Amazon Web Services platform.

When data is submitted it is uploaded to the National Contact Tracing Solution (NCTS) Case Record. The NCTS environment is operated on a Salesforce Service Cloud instance based on AWS cloud infrastructure, in Australia.

The Ministry spokesperson says the form takes around 30 minutes to complete and people can begin the form and come back over a period of 72 hours to complete it.

“If someone doesn’t access the form within 24 hours of being provided the link and access code, they’ll get a follow up call from a contact tracer. There is also a dedicated email address and phone number if people need help,” the spokesperson says.

The Ministry has published a Privacy Impact Assessment for the tool published on its website.