Covid response tech improved

NEWS - eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth

The Covid-19 self-reporting tool has been streamlined, capacity has been increased for the Covid Clinical Care Module, and a bug in the RAT requester site has been fixed, the Ministry of Health says.

Group manager national digital services, Michael Dreyer gave an update on improvements to technologies supporting the Covid response at a press conference on 8 March, saying the systems had been “designed, developed, tested and delivered at pace”.

“However, with all new IT systems, there are initial bugs and process flows to sort out,” he said.

“We are constantly refining our systems, taking on board feedback from our health workers and health consumers.”

He said the Covid Clinical Care Module (CCCM) joins up health information about a case for healthcare workers, so they can ensure those with Covid-19 have access to appropriate clinical care and welfare support.

eHealthNews has reported on the “cacophony of complaints” from GPs about the new shared record system, with GP leaders saying it should be “very much an option” for them to use.

One issue was the time taken to get new patients loaded into the system, which meant a GP may have been caring for a patient for several days before they appeared.

Dreyer said when CCCM went live in mid-February it could handle around 4000 new cases an hour and further capacity built into system means it can now handle 20,000 per hour.

“We have also improved the online contact tracing form after we heard from the public it was taking too long to fill out,” he said.

The form has been streamlined to focus on high-risk events or exposures and welfare needs, reducing the average time it takes to complete from 30 minutes down to eight minutes.

The Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) requester site went live in early March and an initial bug was fixed within the first few hours, meaning it is now fully operational and being used nationwide.

On 7 March, 55,000 total orders were placed and all but 1000 of these were through the web form.

Dreyer asked everyone to report their RAT result via My Covid Record and said it would soon be possible to report results on behalf of others, particularly for children under 12.

He said a new system is going live with text messages to notify people that their isolation period is complete, and the Ministry is considering sending text reminders for those people that have ordered and received RATs, but have not submitted a result.

“We also heard that people wanted a single source of information about what happens when they or someone else close to them gets covered, so last month we launched the COVID-19 Health Hub,” Dreyer said.

Picture: Group manager national digital services, Michael Dreyer


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