[ad_1]
In April, Dr. Ayesha Verrall of the University of Otago wrote a critical report on New Zealand’s ability to contact public health units (PHUs) that do not have the capacity to do so adequately.
It made eight recommendations to improve the process, and the Government responded quickly with an investment of $ 55 million in PHU to increase additional staff and resources for the newly created National Close Contact Service (NCCS). The NCCS was established in March as a central service to support individual PHUs.
Health Minister Dr. David Clark said Saturday that five of the eight recommendations had been completed “or were now considered” as always. “
- Expanding the capacity of PHUs
- Develop an outbreak preparedness plan
- Ensure that close contacts in the home quarantine are contacted every day to monitor their compliance with the isolation rules and assess their symptoms.
- PHUs gain access to the National Contact Tracing Solution (NCTS), a platform for case management
- Collaborate NCCS and medical health officials to better define referral protocols and classification systems, especially for complex contacts
Dr. Clark said that PHUs “have tripled their capacity and can now handle up to 185 cases per day. That’s more than 50 cases per day seven weeks ago.” The NCCS, which has more than 200 employees, can make 10,000 close contact calls a day.
An outbreak preparedness plan is being developed, while Healthline has been tasked with providing daily wellness calls. The Ministry of Health is in the process of providing access to PHUs to NCTS and there has been significantly greater collaboration between NCCS and Medical Health Officials, although this is considered a long-term process.
“The three more recommendations are underway and Sir Brian Roche and the Contact Follow-up Assurance Committee appointed last week are providing oversight and advice on how best to continue to implement Dr. Verrall’s recommendations,” said Dr. Clark. .
Among the recommendations not yet completed is the development of a smartphone application, which is “in progress but with some delay.”
Applications used in various countries around the world use Bluetooth to track people’s movements and who they may have been in close contact with. If someone with the application contracts the virus, a notification is sent to these contacts informing them of the need to isolate themselves.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern previously said that some form of mobile application is being worked on, but has emphasized that the technology will only be used to complement the “on-the-ground” work of staff at PHUs and NCCS. Abroad, app issues have arisen, ranging from privacy issues to not enough people downloading apps that don’t work properly with different phone models.
Information released on Saturday confirms that the Ministry of Health has contracted with a provider to develop an app, with the first release of the app allowing users to record contact details, and the second allowing people to record their locations using a code. QR.
“The contact tracking application is well developed and is expected to be released for voluntary registration very soon. The Ministry of Health is working collaboratively with a number of agencies, including the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and the Digital Director of the Government to advance this work. “Dr. Clark said.
Dr. Verrall has written to Dr. Ashley Bloomfield, Director General of Health, to say that she is “pleased” with the work to increase PHU capacity and the development of an outbreak preparedness plan. It has also provided more advice on key performance indicators, three of which the Ministry has started publishing information.
One shows the time between notification of a case and the follow-up of your close contacts. The goal is for this to happen with 80 percent of cases within 48 hours, something that appears to have been accomplished between April 13 and 27.
To support the contact tracking efforts of health officials, kiwis have been asked to keep a diary or log of where they have been or with whom they may have interacted.
“The apps are really quite useful in terms of things like contact tracking and telling us where we’ve been [but] when we’ve done research using apps, we often find that there is a group in the population that doesn’t interact with apps and that gives us some holes in the data, some gaps in the data, “associate professor of health at Canterbury University Geography Medical doctor Malcolm Campbell previously told Newshub.
Dr. Verrall’s report and her recent review of key indicators can be found here.
