State Health Commissioner orders better COVID-19 reporting
The Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH) today announced new reporting requirements for laboratories and congregate living facilities as part of the state’s ongoing response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The goal is to improve data collection and help ISDH and local health departments more quickly deploy all necessary resources to help limit the spread of the disease.
The order signed by State Health Commissioner Kris Box, M.D., FACOG, requires the following:
- Laboratories must report all negative COVID-19 test results for Indiana residents to ISDH within 24 hours of completing the test. Currently, all positive results must be reported to ISDH.
- All long-term care facilities, jails, prisons, or other congregate housing facilities must report positive COVID-19 test results for all patients, residents, offenders and employees within 24 hours of receiving a positive result.
- All long-term care facilities, jails, prisons or other congregate housing facilities are required to report any COVID-19-related deaths or suspected COVID-19-related deaths of patients, residents, offenders or employees to ISDH within 24 hours of the facilities’ knowledge of the death.
While many providers and laboratories have been following these processes, this order ensures uniformity and timeliness in the reporting of cases and deaths.
Does it bother anyone else that we’re almost 5 months into this pandemic and just now reporting any sort of positive news? We get a steady diet of new positive cases and deaths, but we’ve let to see any statistics as to recoveries. I guess that would require an admission that people are recovering from the virus, and we can’t have that. Death sells papers (or advertising on radio and TV.) A patient of mine – a Vietnam vet – observed that the death toll was “blasted out every night” while the number of returning servicemen and women didn’t receive the same coverage.