BACKGROUND: North Dakota has over 20 counseling, testing and referral (CTR) sites that offer HIV and hepatitis C rapid testing, pre and post-test counseling, and client education. The North Dakota Department of Health (NDDoH) reimburses costs and requires that these sites submit data for each individual tested. Previously, this data was submitted by CTR sites to NDDoH staff via an online web form. CTR sites were unable to make changes or add information after submitting the data and could not use this platform to manage their clients or generate reports. Maven is the NDDoH’s web-based, client centric disease surveillance system and replaced the online web form for CTR sites to enter data in February 2016.
METHODS: Maven has roles and groups that restrict what a user can see and do in the system. Utilizing the group function, each CTR agency was assigned their own group limiting what they can see. CTR workers assigned to their agency’s group can only view cases entered under their agency name. The role function defines what each user can do within the system. In this role, CTR workers are able to create a new case, edit data and update case properties for their specific cases entered into Maven. Each disease or syndrome stored in Maven is listed as a “product” and each product has its own question packages that stores data specific to that disease/syndrome. The product used for this project is called “CTR” and has questions specific to counseling and testing. Compared to the online form, Maven is a more secure platform for data entry and much more configurable. New questions/symptoms/risk factors can be quickly added to question packages of the CTR product. CTR sites are able to better manage client data, and have the capability to enter, change, and update data on their clients as needed. Maven workflows and reports are available for the CTR sites, giving them better client management and understanding of risk factors, vaccination status, etc.
RESULTS: Maven is a flexible system which provides a mutual benefit to both the NDDoH and the CTR sites. The NDDoH benefits by receiving timely reports and having all HIV/HVC testing and results data in one system and CTR sites benefit by improved data availability and client management.
CONCLUSIONS: This project demonstrates the feasibility and security of direct data entry into a disease surveillance system by stakeholders outside of the health department system.