The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, better known as the CDC, is coordinating case investigation and contract tracing for the coronavirus during the current pandemic. This involves tracking the number of cases diagnosed each day, finding the contacts who may have been exposed to COVID-19 and making efforts to isolate patients who have contracted the virus and those who may have been exposed from others within their communities.
Modern technology and data management tools are essential to this process.
The Importance of Text Messaging in Managing COVID-19
Text messaging is one of the most effective tools available for monitoring and staying in close contact with patients who have tested positive for the coronavirus and those who may have been exposed. The activities that can be managed effectively through advanced text messaging applications include the following:
- Case interviewing for those who have tested positive for COVID-19
- Notification of people who may have been exposed to the virus by contact with positive cases
- Tracking of time between potential exposure and notification of contacts
- Following up on contacts to determine if they develop symptoms and when those symptoms appear
- Measuring the percentage of contacts who maintain self-monitoring throughout the required period
- Keeping track of new COVID-19 cases that occur among contacts reported during the case interviewing phase
Effective Contact Tracing and Case Management Methodology
The CDC has outlined some key digital contract tracing tools that can be used for case management, proximity tracing and exposure notification. Text messaging methods can provide a number of real benefits for managing COVID-19 within communities, states and on a national level:
- Automated text messaging systems can provide a streamlined way of capturing and collating electronic messages and data. This can help in identifying patterns of transmission, maintaining accurate data on the spread and symptomology of COVID-19 and in integrating the collected data into a larger management system.
- Text messages use technologies that most people are comfortable with and can use easily. This can increase the response rate for interviews and can allow a back-and-forth dialogue that can elicit more information about the rate of infection and the number of cases resulting from a single exposure.
- Notifying patients about upcoming phone calls and required responses from the local health department or surveys that can assist in contact tracing is often best accomplished through text messaging. This can increase the rate of acceptance for these calls.
- Text messaging can also be used to generate automated monitoring checks to aid in case investigation. This can ease the burden on already overworked health department staff while ensuring that these critical tasks are performed in a timely way.
How Mosio Can Help
The text messaging software offered by Mosio was designed specifically to suit the needs of clinical researchers in the scientific and medical fields. It is ideally suited to serve the needs of health departments in the current pandemic. Some of the most essential features included in Mosio’s software system include the following:
- Personalized reminders to patients and contacts to complete surveys and to provide requested information on contacts, symptoms and test results
- Increased engagement and response rates for text messaging
- Automated surveys and alerts for upcoming phone calls from health department case investigation staff
- Streamlined reporting and data collection to ensure that no information slips through the cracks
- Accurate delivery of information to those who may have been exposed to COVID-19 about symptoms, testing procedures and when to seek medical care
- Customized text messages to different members of a single household through a single mobile phone number
Complete Support from Mosio
Mosio offers you the assistance and support you need to get your public health program set up quickly during these challenging times.
We ensure that all COVID-related projects receive expedited service at no additional charge, and we help you configure, test and deploy your program quickly.
In addition, we can often integrate our own text-based solutions with your existing programs (we are REDCap experts) to create a seamless transition for your community.
Take a look at this Mosio COVID-19 Use Case Workflow…
