Using Data to Ensure a Safe Return to School During COVID-19

Using Data to Ensure a Safe Return to
School During COVID-19

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Using Data to Ensure a Safe Return
to School During COVID-19
COVID-19 has led to significant changes
across every industry, from healthcare to
education.
The impacts include an estimated $17 billion
in lost revenue for hospitals due to halted
elective procedures and school closures for
more than 85 percent of students worldwide.
While there’s little information about how
some changes (e.g., school closures) impact
the disease spread, the social and economic
costs are substantial and disproportionately
affect the most vulnerable populations.

Only limited data on the best approach
for a safe return to pre-pandemic
activity, such as reopening schools, has
informed practices nationwide, leaving
hospitals and school districts unsure
about what to do next.
In the education sector, some state
govern-ments have mandated in-
person learning only to have local
school districts pivot to virtual learning
to accommodate social distancing due
to limited physical space.

Other schools have attempted to open.
For example, several schools in
Georgia opened without COVID-19
safety protocols, then closed a few
days later with nearly 1,200 students
and staff members ordered to
quarantine following exposure to the
virus.
Meanwhile, on the healthcare side,
hospitals are struggling to meet CMS’s
guidelines and their own state’s
recommendations to restart elective
procedures.

While institutions struggle to react to
pandemic-induced changes, such as
virtual learning, leaders can still make
informed decisions that benefit the
masses with access to comprehensive,
up-to-date COVID-19 data.
Even with unclear guidelines, accurate
data and analytics can enable local
governments, schoolboard decision
makers, and healthcare policymakers to
better understand COVID-19 rates and
trends in their communities..

With expansive, data-driven insight
specific to their populations, leaders
can make safe, sustainable decisions,
such as when and how to reopen
primary and secondary schools.

COVID-19 Data Drives Decisions About
In-Person Versus Virtual Learning
Just as health systems increasingly rely
on data to maximize resources, reach
peak operational efficiency, and provide
the best care to patients, COVID-19
has underscored the imperative for
educational organizations to also make
data-informed decisions.
For example, in Washington State, the
Office of Superintendent of Public
Instruction (OPSI) partnered with the
Washington State Department of Health
(DOH) to develop data-informed
reopening guidelines.

The guidelines address public health
science based on the latest COVID-19
data in the community, including the
average number of cases each day and
onset date, available at the time of
publication, to guide consideration for
reopening schools.
Local school boards decide if they will
reopen primary and secondary schools
based on OPSI’s approval of the school
districts’ reopening plans.

Aiming for a better experience for the
2020-21 school year, one rural
Washington community established
a school reopening committee to
develop school year plans based on
COVID-19 data.
The reopening committee created a
subcommittee tasked with monitoring
the risk of COVID-19 transmission for
children in the school system and
regularly reporting this information to
the larger committee.

The subcommittee analyzed compre-
hensive data from different sources,
such as The American Academy of
Pediatrics, weekly epidemiology
reports from Cowlitz County Health &
Human Services (CCHHS), and the
DOH in order to assess this risk.
The subcommittee reviews COVID-19
data on a regular basis to understand
the level of transmission within the
local community and to inform
reopening plans.

For example, based on the latest data,
children under 18 account for less than
11 percent of all COVID-19 cases and
some data suggests that children under
the age of 18 are less susceptible to
COVID-19, but the frequency of trans-
mission of COVID-19 from children to
adults is still unclear.
Monitoring COVID-19 data as it
changes allows for a safe, informed
approach to reopening in-person
learning.

Weekly COVID-19 Activity Reports Help
Institutions Keep up with Coronavirus Trends
The struggle to stay on top of the latest
coronavirus trends is all too common.
In addition to schools, health systems,
companies, and universities all grapple
with knowing when to safely return to
pre-coronavirus practices.
But, even with the ever-changing virus,
planning school reopenings is possible
if decision makers have access to the
latest complete COVID-19 data.

The weekly data reports about Cowlitz
County COVID-19 rates combined with
information from the DOH, bench-
marked against national data to
understand how the school district’s
COVID-19 cases compared, allowed
the subcommittee to rely on broad,
unbiased data (rather than anecdotal
information) to effectively guide school
reopening conversations and planning.

Like many other counties, CCHHS
tracks and reports the Cowlitz County’s
COVID-19 testing and results activity.
A weekly epidemiology report provides
residents and school districts data they
can use to understand COVID-19
activity in the community.
Community members can also access
updated reports every Monday and use
the DOH resources (e.g., Decision Tree
for Provision of In-Person Learning) to
make data-informed school reopening
decisions (Figure 1).

Figure 1: The Cowlitz County epidemiology report.

Relying on varied, timely COVID-19
reports, decision makers learned that
by August of 2020, the number of
COVID-19 cases in Cowlitz County
aligned with the state’s definition of
moderate COVID-19 activity.

The DOH suggests exercising caution
for COVID-19 positive rates over 5
percent, and Cowlitz County’s rate was
5 percent.
With no COVID-19-related
hospitalizations and meeting the DOH
Decision Tree’s criteria to reopen
schools, Cowlitz County could safely
expand in-person education combined
with virtual learning, starting with
elementary students.

Safely Restarting In-Person Learning
Is Possible with COVID-19 Data
To return to in-person education, the
district had to develop plans to ensure
staff and student safety while also
meeting the Washington State
Department of Labor and Industries
COVID-19 requirements to protect
workers.
Safety measures included keeping the
students in designated cohorts, daily
symptom screening, providing personal
protective equipment, sufficient
ventilation, and large spaces to
accommodate social distancing.

To augment safety measures, schools
used contact tracing tools to track
student movement.
Understanding how many students
each building could safely accommo-
date and identifying any COVID-19
exposure early decreased the
likelihood of the virus spreading and
increased the chance of continuing in-
person learning.

The data also revealed that the school
district had limited capacity and could
not safely accommodate in-person
learning for all students to attend five
days a week while maintaining physical
distancing requirements.
With evidence-based, data-informed
safety precautions in place and a
moderate COVID-19 activity level, the
school board voted to resume in-
person education for kindergarten
through sixth grade.

Leaders implemented a hybrid schedule
(until the physical distancing require-
ments change) so that students can
learn online while still experiencing
some in-person learning and social
interaction.
Seventh through twelfth grade began
the school year with online education
only.

Although in-person learning resumed,
community leaders and teachers
understood that it could change over-
night based on new COVID-19 data.
Therefore, it was critical to have access
to the latest data sets from a variety of
sources in easy-to-read data displays,
helping people less versed in advanced
data analytics understand the data and
make quick decisions.

At some schools in the district, hundreds
of students have been attending in-
person education for more than twelve
weeks without any COVID-19 trans-
mission at the school, only possible
because of access to reliable data that
demonstrates the in-person learning is
safely meeting local guidelines.

COVID-19 Data Allows for Effective,
Safe Learning Environment
Reintroducing pre-pandemic practices in
any setting—from reopening schools to
restarting elective procedures in a
hospital—leaves room for error and a
failure to implement appropriate safety
standards.
Because experts are still learning about
the coronavirus, the only way to keep up
with COVID-19 is with data.

Current, comprehensive data allows
decision makers to stay in the know
about the latest changes in their local
community, and in turn, ensure
response measures (e.g., in-person
learning or restarting elective surgeries)
align with the latest information.

To optimize data, decision makers need
proper tools, such as data displays that
highlight trends, patterns, or outliers.
Additionally, relying on data-informed
tools to understand capacity (whether in
a school or hospital) and trace potential
COVID-19 exposure allows organiza-
tions to get ahead of the virus.

With the combination of consistent
data sets from diverse sources, tools
to maximize data, and leaders who
are willing to adapt their approach,
community members can practice
safe decision making and more
quickly return to a life similar before
the pandemic.

For more information:
“This book is a fantastic piece of work”
– Robert Lindeman MD, FAAP, Chief Physician Quality Officer

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Heather Schoonover is a Vice President at Health Catalyst and is responsible for ensuring customer
outcomes, including the development of strategies for driving and communicating customer outcomes.
Heather has more than 20 years’ experience in nursing and healthcare. Prior to joining Health Catalyst,
Heather was the director of professional practice at PeaceHealth and was responsible for improving
patient safety and outcomes, organizational outcomes, leader and staff competency, and the nurse
practice environment. Heather has held adjunct nursing faculty positions and pro tem appointments on the
Washington State Nursing Care Quality Assurance Commission, the State regulatory board of nursing. Heather obtained a
Master of Nursing from Washington State University and is board certified by the American Nurses Credentialing Center as a
clinical nurse specialist in public and community health. Heather is a Clinical Nurse Specialist Institute Fellow, and has been
honored to be the recipient of leadership awards from both Sigma Theta Tau, the International Honor Society for Nursing, and
the Northwest Organization of Nurse Executives. Heather has more than 20 years’ experience in nursing and healthcare. Prior
to joining Health Catalyst, Heather was the director of professional practice at PeaceHealth and was responsible for improving
patient safety and outcomes, organizational outcomes, leader and staff competency, and the nurse practice environment.
Heather has held adjunct nursing faculty positions and pro tem appointments on the Washington State Nursing Care Quality
Assurance Commission, the State regulatory board of nursing. Heather obtained a Master of Nursing from Washington State
University and is board certified by the American Nurses Credentialing Center as a clinical nurse specialist in public and
community health. Heather is a Clinical Nurse Specialist Institute Fellow, and has been honored to be the recipient of
leadership awards from both Sigma Theta Tau, the International Honor Society for Nursing, and the Northwest Organization
of Nurse Executives.
Other Clinical Quality Improvement Resources
Click to read additional information at www.healthcatalyst.com
Heather Schoonover, MN, ARNP-CNS, PHCNS-BC, FCNS

Other Clinical Quality Improvement Resources
Click to read additional information at www.healthcatalyst.com
Health Catalyst is a mission-driven data warehousing, analytics and outcomes-improvement
company that helps healthcare organizations of all sizes improve clinical, financial, and operational
outcomes needed to improve population health and accountable care. Our proven enterprise data
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Using Data to Ensure a Safe Return to School During COVID-19

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