New dashboards make COVID-19 data visual

— from Joint Information Center, State Emergency Operations Center —

Camp Murray, WA — The Washington State Department of Health (DOH) changed how COVID-19 information appears on our website. It is now in a data dashboard with new visualizations and metrics.

The Department of Health worked in partnership with Microsoft’s AI for Health team to make this dashboard, and it relies on data reported by local health jurisdictions, health care facilities and labs.

“This dashboard helps us communicate trends and data in a way that makes it much easier for the public to understand,” said Jennifer McNamara, Chief Information Officer for the Washington State Department of Health. “We know how much the public values this information and appreciate the partnership with Microsoft to make this possible.”

This new dashboard aims to increase timeliness, accuracy, and speed of data reporting to the public. It will report cases, laboratory tests and deaths as of the previous day. We will also publish cumulative death counts by date of death, epidemiologic curves and trend charts for cumulative cases and tests. The dashboard includes a metric for the percent of hospital admissions related to COVID-19 like illness.

_{(Data visualization from www.doh.wa.gov/coronavirus. Note: These hospitalizations are based on symptoms which are common among patients who have COVID-19, like fever and respiratory symptoms, but are also common symptoms of many other illnesses. Hospitalizations represented may both include people who may not have COVID-19 as well as exclude hospitalizations for COVID-19, so should be interpreted with caution. These data are most appropriate for examining changes in general trends over time).}

“Data-driven insights about the spread of COVID-19 are critical for all of us during these uncertain times,” said John Kahan, Microsoft Global Head, AI for Health program. “We hope that Microsoft’s data science capabilities will help the Department of Health provide accurate and clear information to people across Washington while prioritizing the health of local communities.”

Each day, DOH will report information through the end of the previous day and supply it to Microsoft, who will then refresh the visualizations. Our goal is to publish refreshed data to DOH’s website daily.