As no suitable program for case documentation and contact tracing was available on the market, the city's IT department developed its own program within a few weeks, which is now also attracting interest from other municipalities.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the health department has collected around 33,000 data records in connection with suspected coronavirus cases. The municipal health department uses the Covdi - Covid digital - software, which was developed during the crisis by the IT department in the Personnel and Organization Office, to ensure that affected persons can be contacted quickly.

Six weeks from the first conversation to the start

The first meeting to support the public health department during the coronavirus pandemic took place on April 3, 2020. After this meeting, an online form for recording contact details, symptoms, contact persons, etc. was made available at short notice. The development of the Covdi web service was then started based on the data collected.

"The form and the application were further developed in constructive collaboration between the health department and IT and adapted to the needs of our colleagues," explains David Adler, who is leading the project to introduce the software. After some employee training, Covdi went live on May 20, 2020 - just over six weeks later.

Transferring the old data to the new system

Before Covdi was introduced, the manually recorded data for the individual coronavirus cases was entered into a sharepoint at the public health department and filed in a paper file. This data was transferred the night before the software was launched and subsequently processed by colleagues at the public health department in order to maintain a structured database in the new system.

A total of 9,653 cases were integrated into Covdi. In the last four and a half months, around 4,500 cases have been added every month. "This means that there are currently around 33,000 data records that have already been recorded and processed in Covdi," says Adler, who heads up the e-government and electronic administration department.

The functions of the Covdi program

Citizens' information is recorded in a structured manner in an online form by the employees of the public health department and automatically transmitted to Covdi in real time. The online form also allows non-specialist employees to assist in recording cases.

Once the contact details and information on the course of the illness have been recorded, new cases are automatically created in Covdi.

The processing of cases is supported by the automated ordering of swabs and quarantines. For this purpose, the system generates emails with all relevant information about the affected person at the click of a mouse, which are sent in the background to the relevant departments at the health authority.

For the further processing and documentation of individual cases, relevant information such as results of swabs, changes in the course of the disease or contact persons can be stored and linked in the system.

"By dispensing with paper files, Covdi offers employees the opportunity to work on the move," explains project manager David Adler.

How has the workflow changed with the introduction of CovDi?

The database makes it possible to check whether callers are already known or whether they are new cases that still need to be recorded. The cases can also be assigned by allocating case numbers. The handling of the entire investigation has been simplified as all information can be entered immediately.

How much easier is the program compared to before?

Thanks to the complete digital recording of cases, the cases recorded in the back office, investigation and quarantine team no longer have to be distributed in paper form; all information is stored under the case. Thanks to Covdi, we now have access to an up-to-date list of people in quarantine. This list is essential for performing our tasks in the "quarantine team" and could previously only be compiled by manually reviewing the case files on a daily basis. This required a considerable amount of additional time and was only possible to a limited extent due to the high number of cases. Extending or changing quarantines, ordering swabs or recording test results has also become much easier. "The switch to Covdi was quicker and easier than expected, as we quickly realized how much it would benefit our day-to-day work," says the team at the public health department about the digitalization process.

How quickly did you get used to using the program?

The changeover to Covdi was quicker and easier than expected, as we quickly realized how much it would benefit our day-to-day work. The program is largely self-explanatory. Colleagues are very motivated to use the digital application. New colleagues were quickly familiarized with Covdi.

The deployment planning of staff

The current project is the digitalization of duty scheduling via an online form in conjunction with a corresponding web application. The employees of the health department have the opportunity to plan their desired shifts, vacations and shifts six weeks in advance. The results from the form are automatically transferred to a calendar in the web application.

Within the web application, the occupancy of the individual days is made visible with a traffic light system. The application offers the possibility to counteract possible over- or underbookings through flexible planning and to automatically contact the employees.