county details discrepancies dashboards

As of Wednesday afternoon, the County’s dashboard provided a COVID-19 case count of 125 with the number of COVID-19 related deaths at a total of six. At the same time, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) dashboard indicated 71 cases and two deaths. 

At their last meeting, the Moore County Commissioners asked the County Manager to investigate the dashboard differences.  After talking with Moore County Health Department staff, Moore County IT staff, NCDHHS Communications staff, and others involved in the two dashboards, Moore County provided the following information:

The Moore County COVID-19 dashboard is updated locally and based upon COVID-19 case information provided directly to the Health Department from medical providers;

The NCDHHS COVID-19 dashboard displays information that is being pulled from the North Carolina Electronic Disease Surveillance System (NC EDSS);

NC EDSS is used by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Public Health, the State’s 86 local and multi-county district health departments (LHDs), and eight HIV/STD Regional Offices. Laboratories also report electronically to NC EDSS;

Medical or Lab entities in some instances are unable to put test information into NC EDSS.  For these situations, the Health Department’s qualified system users or another valid user of NC EDSS must put the test information into the system;

NCDHHS is aware that some providers are unable to enter test data into NC EDSS and is working to resolve the issue;

The Moore County Health Department has prioritized contact tracing and keeping the County Dashboard case information current while arranging for State assistance to enter test information into NC EDSS that otherwise cannot be entered by a medical or lab provider;

To facilitate entering this information locally and more timely, the Moore County Health Department has worked to bring in additional nursing staff to assist with both contact tracing and case data entry into NC EDSS;

It is anticipated that with the additional nursing assistance and continued assistance from State personnel, NC EDSS data and NCDHHS dashboard will soon more closely match the data displayed on the County dashboard;

In the shorter term, the County Dashboard will continue to have the most up to date Moore County COVID-19 data;

Longer term, the two dashboards will more closely match; however, periodically the two dashboards may have different case counts due to the verification process of NC EDSS data and timing of dashboard updates.

As confirmed by public health attorneys from the Attorney General’s Office and NC DHHS, health directors can only require testing of residents and employees of long-term care facilities when there are two confirmed cases of COVID-19 within a facility within a 28 day period.

The Moore County Health Director will expeditiously require testing whenever the two-case minimum is met. In addition, the Moore County Health Director continues to urge all long-term care facilities, within the County, to voluntarily consent to COVID-19 testing of its residents and employees.

The Moore County Board of County Commissioners has ensured the Health Director and Board of Health that it will amply provide all necessary resources enabling the Health Department to provide exceptional services to the citizens of Moore County which includes increased funding already approved by the Board of County Commissioners that covers all costs for the testing of the long-term care facilities.

In addition, the Board of County Commissioners is committed to providing increased funding to the Health Department to provide additional nurse positions or other staff positions needed to conduct contact tracing and to input COVID-19 case data into the statewide electronic data reporting system for communicable diseases NC EDSS.

To view county’s COVID-19 dashboard, please click here.

 

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