Why it’s So Hard for Hospitals to Track Incidental COVID-19 Cases

Source Becker’s Health IT Monday, January 24th, 2022

Hospitals are seeing an increasing number of incidental COVID-19 cases, where patients are being admitted for other ailments but testing positive for the virus. These cases aren’t easy to track, and hospitals are finding many challenges trying to decipher between patients admitted for the virus as their primary condition and those with incidental cases.

Becker’s interviewed hospital CIOs about the issue of tracking incidental cases to determine why this has been so difficult. Answers about incidental tracking pointed to three elements — COVID-19 testing and reporting, EHR systems, and hospital staff shortages — proving that incidental COVID-19 tracking data, at this moment in time, might be hard to come by for some hospitals.