Background: Hospital workers have been the most frequently and severely affected professional group during the COVID-19 pandemic, and have a big impact on transmission. In this context, innovative tools are required to measure the symptoms compatible with COVID-19, the spread of infection, and testing capabilities within hospitals in real time.
Objective: We aimed to develop and test an effective and user-friendly tool to identify and track symptoms compatible with COVID-19 in hospital workers.
Methods: We developed and pilot tested Hospital Epidemics Tracker (HEpiTracker), a newly designed app to track the spread of COVID-19 among hospital workers. Hospital staff in 9 hospital centers across 5 Spanish regions (Andalusia, Balearics, Catalonia, Galicia, and Madrid) were invited to download the app on their phones and to register their daily body temperature, COVID-19-compatible symptoms, and general health score, as well as any polymerase chain reaction and serological test results.
Results: A total of 477 hospital staff participated in the study between April 8 and June 2, 2020. Of note, both health-related (n=329) and non-health-related (n=148) professionals participated in the study; over two-thirds of participants (68.8%) were health workers (43.4% physicians and 25.4% nurses), while the proportion of non-health-related workers by center ranged from 40% to 85%. Most participants were female (n=323, 67.5%), with a mean age of 45.4 years (SD 10.6). Regarding smoking habits, 13.0% and 34.2% of participants were current or former smokers, respectively. The daily reporting of symptoms was highly variable across participating hospitals; although we observed a decline in adherence after an initial participation peak in some hospitals, other sites were characterized by low participation rates throughout the study period.
Conclusions: HEpiTracker is an already available tool to monitor COVID-19 and other infectious diseases in hospital workers. This tool has already been tested in real conditions. HEpiTracker is available in Spanish, Portuguese, and English. It has the potential to become a customized asset to be used in future COVID-19 pandemic waves and other environments.
Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04326400; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04326400.
Keywords: COVID-19; app; coronavirus; e-medicine; monitoring; surveillance; symptoms.
©Joan B Soriano, Esteve Fernández, Álvaro de Astorza, Luis A Pérez de Llano, Alberto Fernández-Villar, Dolors Carnicer-Pont, Bernardino Alcázar-Navarrete, Arturo García, Aurelio Morales, María Lobo, Marcos Maroto, Eloy Ferreras, Cecilia Soriano, Carlos Del Rio-Bermudez, Lorena Vega-Piris, Xavier Basagaña, Josep Muncunill, Borja G Cosio, Sara Lumbreras, Carlos Catalina, José María Alzaga, David Gómez Quilón, Carlos Alberto Valdivia, Celia de Lara, Julio Ancochea. Originally published in JMIR Public Health and Surveillance (http://publichealth.jmir.org), 21.09.2020.