A COVID-19 Preparedness App to Enhance Front-line Interoperability by OCHIN/Epic

Created through a collaboration of OCHIN and Epic for the Washington Health Care Authority, the COVID-19 Preparedness App is a scalable, mobile solution for communities responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

This HIPAA-compliant tool empowers frontline health care workers to conduct emergency patient triage in the field that automatically becomes part of a patient’s medical record—closing existing interoperability gaps between providers at emergency pop-up care sites, labs, and public health agencies working to monitor community spread. It can also be utilized by citizen volunteers, expanding health care capacity in rural and underserved areas. 

This tool is being deployed in Washington state, where OCHIN has also helped to deploy four COVID-19 Assessment Centers to triage patients that are experiencing symptoms and/or have tested positive and need to be quarantined or admitted to an in-patient facility. This solution is scalable to any entities at the local or state level, and to other public health agencies to aid in patient triage.