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COVID-19 Close Contact Management: An Evolution of Operations Harnessing the Digital Edge

Singapore, like many other nations globally, had to contend with significant caseloads arising from the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. This paper focuses on using technology as an intervention for pandemic management. With scant scientific evidence on effective medications and vaccinations...

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Autores principales: Seah, Benjamin ZQ, Jailani, Rehmen I, Law, Peter YC, Teo, Roger SM, Chong, Xin Ying, Law, Olivia, Chong, Si Jack
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer US 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9925361/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36781557
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10916-023-01918-3
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author Seah, Benjamin ZQ
Jailani, Rehmen I
Law, Peter YC
Teo, Roger SM
Chong, Xin Ying
Law, Olivia
Chong, Si Jack
author_facet Seah, Benjamin ZQ
Jailani, Rehmen I
Law, Peter YC
Teo, Roger SM
Chong, Xin Ying
Law, Olivia
Chong, Si Jack
author_sort Seah, Benjamin ZQ
collection PubMed
description Singapore, like many other nations globally, had to contend with significant caseloads arising from the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. This paper focuses on using technology as an intervention for pandemic management. With scant scientific evidence on effective medications and vaccinations (i.e., pharmaceutical interventions) initially, disease containment strategies predominated during the early phases. Non-pharmaceutical interventions were critical in slowing disease transmission and preventing public healthcare institutions from being overwhelmed. Such interventions could be broadly divided into case-based interventions (e.g., contact tracing and quarantining of close contacts) and population-based measures (e.g., mask use and social distancing). The paper describes Singapore’s experience in the operational implementation of contact-based interventions, and illustrates how harnessing the digital edge enabled fast, accurate, resource-efficient, and flexible execution of ground operations. Singapore applied digital technology and developed an integrated system to facilitate issuance and acknowledgement of quarantine orders, submission of COVID-19 test results, and collection of antigen rapid test kits at the population level. Data was obtained from this proprietary centralised, automated platform. The paper demonstrates how such simple, yet elegant systems could have a direct impact on disease transmission in an outbreak setting and on population health. Moving forward, it is recommended that technology and digital solutions feature prominently in work process designs beyond COVID-19 such as in the management of emerging infectious diseases and non-communicable diseases.
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spelling pubmed-99253612023-02-14 COVID-19 Close Contact Management: An Evolution of Operations Harnessing the Digital Edge Seah, Benjamin ZQ Jailani, Rehmen I Law, Peter YC Teo, Roger SM Chong, Xin Ying Law, Olivia Chong, Si Jack J Med Syst Comment Singapore, like many other nations globally, had to contend with significant caseloads arising from the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. This paper focuses on using technology as an intervention for pandemic management. With scant scientific evidence on effective medications and vaccinations (i.e., pharmaceutical interventions) initially, disease containment strategies predominated during the early phases. Non-pharmaceutical interventions were critical in slowing disease transmission and preventing public healthcare institutions from being overwhelmed. Such interventions could be broadly divided into case-based interventions (e.g., contact tracing and quarantining of close contacts) and population-based measures (e.g., mask use and social distancing). The paper describes Singapore’s experience in the operational implementation of contact-based interventions, and illustrates how harnessing the digital edge enabled fast, accurate, resource-efficient, and flexible execution of ground operations. Singapore applied digital technology and developed an integrated system to facilitate issuance and acknowledgement of quarantine orders, submission of COVID-19 test results, and collection of antigen rapid test kits at the population level. Data was obtained from this proprietary centralised, automated platform. The paper demonstrates how such simple, yet elegant systems could have a direct impact on disease transmission in an outbreak setting and on population health. Moving forward, it is recommended that technology and digital solutions feature prominently in work process designs beyond COVID-19 such as in the management of emerging infectious diseases and non-communicable diseases. Springer US 2023-02-14 2023 /pmc/articles/PMC9925361/ /pubmed/36781557 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10916-023-01918-3 Text en © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2023 This article is made available via the PMC Open Access Subset for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic.
spellingShingle Comment
Seah, Benjamin ZQ
Jailani, Rehmen I
Law, Peter YC
Teo, Roger SM
Chong, Xin Ying
Law, Olivia
Chong, Si Jack
COVID-19 Close Contact Management: An Evolution of Operations Harnessing the Digital Edge
title COVID-19 Close Contact Management: An Evolution of Operations Harnessing the Digital Edge
title_full COVID-19 Close Contact Management: An Evolution of Operations Harnessing the Digital Edge
title_fullStr COVID-19 Close Contact Management: An Evolution of Operations Harnessing the Digital Edge
title_full_unstemmed COVID-19 Close Contact Management: An Evolution of Operations Harnessing the Digital Edge
title_short COVID-19 Close Contact Management: An Evolution of Operations Harnessing the Digital Edge
title_sort covid-19 close contact management: an evolution of operations harnessing the digital edge
topic Comment
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9925361/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36781557
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10916-023-01918-3
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