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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...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Springer US
2023
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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. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9925361 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | Springer US |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
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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