ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Initial COVID-19 surges in the United States created a need for technology to supplement human resources to increase efficiency and efficacy. METHODS: Resolve to Save Lives worked with jurisdictions to co-design four technology solutions-Epi Viaduct data pipeline, Epi Contacts contact elicitation webform, Epi Locator contact information search plugin and Epi Viewpoint case management system-to expand the capacity of case investigation and contact tracing (CI/CT) teams. We assessed impact on reducing CI/CT time intervals for COVID-19 using product data and user feedback. RESULTS: Epi Viaduct accelerated the transfer of approximately 7,400,000 records from an electronic lab reporting (ELR) system in a single jurisdiction to the respective case management system (CMS) from more than 2.5 hours to less than one minute and reduced time to remove duplicate lab results from multiple days to less than six hours. Epi Contacts focused on increasing efficacy of contact elicitation and, during a single period, 10% of index cases (9,440/96,319) completed Epi Contacts for a total of approximately 18,700 contacts elicited. User interviews indicated the tool increased speed of CI/CT workflows. In total, 134,410 searches were run in Epi Locator by 7,320 distinct users-75% of which returned one or more person matches. A simple CMS, Epi Viewpoint, was developed and completed, but not deployed. CONCLUSIONS: Systems to mount large-scale population-based contact tracing programs were developed and implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic and can be adapted for CI/CT programs aiming to control the spread of other communicable diseases such as STDs.