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

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.