Emergency Response to COVID-19 in Canada: Platform Development and Implementation for eHealth in Crisis Management

Abstract

Journal of Medical Internet Research - International Scientific Journal for Medical Research, Information and Communication on the Internet #Preprint #PeerReviewMe: Warning: This is a unreviewed preprint. Readers are warned that the document has not been peer-reviewed by expert/patient reviewers or an academic editor, may contain misleading claims, and is likely to undergo changes before final publication, if accepted, or may have been rejected/withdrawn. Readers with interest and expertise are encouraged to sign up as peer-reviewer, if the paper is within an open peer-review period. Please cite this preprint only for review purposes or for grant applications and CVs (if you are the author). Background: Public health emergencies like epidemics put enormous pressure on health care systems, while revealing deep structural and functional problems in the organization of care. The current COVID-19 pandemic illustrates this at a global level. The sudden increased demand on delivery systems puts unique pressures on pre-established care pathways. These extraordinary times require efficient tools for smart governance and resource allocation. Objective: To develop an innovative web-based solution addressing the seemingly unsurmountable challenges of triage, monitoring, and delivery of non-hospital services unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: Based on an existing shared health record platform and discussions between health care providers, decision-makers, academia, and the private sector in response to the COVID 19 epidemic, with the goal of improving the system’s response, an adaptable crisis management digital platform was envisioned and designed. Results: The Crisis Management Platform was developed and offered to health authorities in British Columbia on a non-profit basis. It has the capability to dramatically streamline patient intake, triage, monitoring, referral, and delivery of non-hospital services. It decentralizes provision of services (by moving them online), and centralizes data gathering and analysis, maximizing utilization of existing human resources, facilitating evidence-based decision-making, and minimizing the risk to both users and providers. It has unlimited scale-up possibilities (only con-strained by HHRR availability) with minimal marginal cost. Similar web-based solutions have the potential to fill an urgent gap in resource allocation, becoming a unique asset for health systems governance and management during critical times. They highlight the potential effectiveness of web-based solutions if built on an outcome-driven architecture. Conclusions: Data and web-based approaches in response to public health crisis are key to evidence-driven oversight and management of public health emergencies.