DOH offering tool to help gather COVID outbreak data in health care facilities

DOH has developed a Health Care Facility Outbreak Notification Tool (HC FONT) for use by local health jurisdictions and tribal health partners. The HC FONT is a user-friendly and efficient way to manage outbreak data.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many LHJs reported significant challenges with receiving timely, accurate, and complete details of COVID-19 outbreaks from health care settings, particularly long-term care. Developed within REDCap, local and tribal health partners can use HC FONT to obtain outbreak information from their facilities.

All the data in the HC FONT belongs to the LHJ or tribal partner; DOH does not take any action on the data that is entered unless requested to do so by the LHJ or tribal partner. HC FONT allows local and tribal health partners to manage outbreak data in an organized way and perform basic descriptive analysis.

The HC FONT can be used for COVID-19, flu, GI illness, and unidentified respiratory illness outbreaks in any health care setting, including long term care, hospitals, and outpatient health care settings.

A Healthcare-Associated Infections epidemiologist is available to provide healthcare facilities with a simplified tutorial on using the HC FONT. For more information regarding HC FONT or to request a tutorial, contact Healthcare-Associated Infections Epidemiologist Peggy Douglas.