JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

The PANDEM-2 IT system provides an innovative solution that offers a standardised and interactive platform for decision-making on pandemic management. 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. The development of the PANDEM-2 dashboard was informed by a review of COVID-19 dashboards in the public domain. 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 end-users from various healthcare and pandemic management professions. These were further refined by mapping all necessary variables to indicators required to fulfil the identified needs. The variables identified as most relevant 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, there were several data gaps, two of the most significant being contact tracing and deaths. Through a participatory design process, end-users interacted with a pre-prototype, explored potential interface designs, and provided feedback to refine different system components. This process ensured continuous and active user involvement throughout the development process. 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. Potential privacy, data protection, ethical, and social risks associated with the technology were identified through an iterative process throughout the project. Ten risks were identified, all with low to medium likelihood of occurrence. Four risks were ethical (accessibility, user autonomy, responsible use, transparency and accountability), two related to privacy and data protection (security and access controls, data re-identification) and four associated with social factors (unintentional bias, data quality and accuracy, dependency on technology and collaborative development). Risks were mitigated through project actions and recommendations provided for project stakeholders and end-users. The findings from this paper contribute valuable insights into the complexity and challenges, as well as opportunities for developing IT tools to support pandemic preparedness and response.