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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 13) – Responding to experts who report flaws in their records, the Health Department is taking steps with the help of a partner company to improve its COVID-19 data collection system with a new digital application for frontliners.
Thinking Machines Data Science Inc., a company that works with the department, said it has started to implement COVID KAYA, a digital surveillance application developed with the help of the World Health Organization and in which members of the border line they can enter case information directly into the DOH system.
Founder and CEO, Stephanie Sy, explained that there were inconsistencies in the data collection on COVID-19 as health personnel have been submitting information by manually completing forms that would still have to be coded.
“Sometimes it’s a coding problem, sometimes it’s a process problem,” Sy said during DOH’s daily online briefing. “Sometimes the form is filled out incorrectly or (they) tagged the wrong person.”
The app’s reports can be viewed and added to the system as early as next week, he added.
“This means the number of steps it takes to collect suspicious case data, verify that data and load it into a data warehouse and make it possible for all the different scientists, LGU policymakers and national policymakers to use that data centrally. “Sy said.
Sy said DOH has been reporting real-time data every 4 p.m., as indicated in the agency’s daily posts, meaning that any case information sent by hospital staff is published immediately before it is updated.
“[We] “We update the publicly shared data sets for the next day,” he explained. “We did not update the data from the previous day because we believe in transparency and in keeping what is in the public record as true that day.”
But this time, DOH will include in its daily updates what fixes and changes have been made, Sy added.
On Tuesday, a team of 200 experts detailed multiple errors in the COVID-19 case count, such as classifying 516 patients into an “imaginary city.”
This development garnered the ire of lawmakers who later voiced doubts based on recent government policies to address the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, both Sy and DOH argued that prior errors remain less than one percent of the total record, as previously defended by Health Secretary Francisco Duque.
“Sa kabila po ng lahat ng ito, confident po kami na ang ating data yes trustworthy Na basehan ning aming nagiging desisyon“said health spokeswoman Ma. Rosario Vergeire.
[Translation: Despite all of this, we are confident that our data is a reliable basis for our decisions.]Sy said DOH data has been 99 percent accurate even as they continue to update the system.
“It really takes months to build and test a data system correctly,” he said. “Here with DOH, we have been building it in real time … and sharing data since day 1. I would really like it to be 99.9 percent reliable and consistent.”
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