JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

During the COVID-19 pandemic, rapid identification and reporting of laboratory-confirmed cases were essential for effective disease surveillance and response. However, the surge in testing, particularly from non-traditional settings, led many facilities to rely on fax-based reporting, creating delays and data quality challenges for public health agencies. In response, the Arkansas Department of Health developed a web-based reporting portal to streamline submissions and reduce reporting burden; the impact of this transition on data timeliness and completeness remains understudied.

Objective:

This study aimed to assess the impact of transitioning to a rapidly developed electronic lab reporting portal on the timeliness and completeness of COVID-19 lab report data.

Methods:

We used the Arkansas Department of Health (ADH) lab reporting data (2021-2023) to assess changes in timeliness and completeness of COVID-19 lab report data for the testing facilities that transitioned from faxing to the portal from pre- to post-implementation. For timeliness, we measured the time between lab draw and ADH data receipt; for completeness, we calculated missingness of seven information fields.

Results:

We found reductions in the time to data receipt for positive (5.0 vs. 13.1 days; p<0.0001) and negative (6.9 vs. 15.1 days; p<0.0001) COVID-19 test results. Additionally, we found improvements in completeness after portal implementation for positive (88.3% vs. 71.6%; p<0.0001) and negative (90.7% vs. 61.5%; p<0.0001) results.

Conclusions:

The portal implementation by ADH improved the quality of COVID-19 lab data, thus, strengthening the disease surveillance efforts during the pandemic and future research studies.