JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed disparities in response capabilities across European countries, resulting in fragmented approaches and delays. The EU has mandated robust measures to strengthen pandemic preparedness and response in the EU. The PANDEM-2 IT system provides an innovative solution to address this objective, by offering a standardised and interactive platform for pandemic preparedness training and response, to support pandemic decision-making.

Objective:

This paper describes the development and potential of the PANDEM-2 dashboard – a key component of the system, and outlines the methodologies employed in obtaining insights and feedback from end-users during its development. It further demonstrates how privacy, data protection, ethical and social risks were considered throughout the process, in compliance with GDPR and relevant health technology regulations.

Methods:

The development of the PANDEM-2 dashboard was informed by a review of existing COVID-19 dashboards. A visualisation catalogue was created to serve as a directory of existing public health visualisation approaches. User requirements were gathered through workshops and consultations with various healthcare and pandemic management professionals. These were then refined by mapping necessary variables to required indicators. End-users interacted with a pre-prototype through a participatory design process and provided feedback to refine different system components. This process ensured ongoing user involvement throughout development. Potential privacy, data protection, ethical, and social risks associated with the technology were iteratively identified throughout the project.

Results:

User requirements were refined to focus on variables identified as most relevant, which were cases, deaths, hospital resources, hospital admissions, testing, contact tracing, and vaccination uptake. Variable categories identified as high priority were also the most readily available. However, several data gaps existed, two of the most significant being contact tracing and deaths. Users emphasised the importance of diverse data visualisation formats, combining different data types, and analysing data across various time frames. They expressed interest in generating custom reports and exploring data on the impact of government interventions, such as medical countermeasures. Participants’ feedback also shed light on data reporting challenges, such as disparities in reporting levels, time intervals, and the need for standardisation between member states. The findings further highlighted the crucial need for timely and detailed data in responding to pandemics and public health threats, emphasising the importance of considering interdependencies, data sharing and strengthening cross border collaboration for informed decision-making. Ten potential risks were identified, covering ethical concerns (accessibility, user autonomy, responsible use, transparency, and accountability), privacy and data protection issues (security, access controls, data re-identification), and social factors (unintentional bias, data quality, technology dependency, and collaborative development). These risks were addressed through project actions and recommendations provided to stakeholders and end-users.

Conclusions:

This paper provides valuable insights into the development of IT tools for pandemic preparedness and response. The lessons learned from the development and implementation of the platform can pave the way for future research and development in pandemic management and response technologies, and inform the development of similar solutions.