Mostashari, Emanuel want serological surveys and sentinel testing
In an opinion piece in Stat, two former Obama administration officials make a case that data collection and analysis needs to go hand-in-hand with expanded testing for COVID-19.
Farzad Mostashari and Ezekiel Emanuel say, for example, that laboratories should be required to submit information on everyone tested not just those who test positive and that there should be serological surveys of multiple communities. They also mention serological surveys of randomly selected people would be the way to assess the “real percentage” of those who are positive for COVID-19, not just the “individuals who are bringing themselves in for testing.”
Their piece was published in Stat yesterday.
Mostashari, MD, was the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology in the Obama administration for two and a half years. After leaving the federal government, he founded Aledade, a company that operates ACOs for primary care physicians. Emanuel was a senior health adviser during the Obama administration and is commonly credited with being one of the architects of the ACA. He is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
At a White House briefing today, Deborah Birx, MD, said that 370,000 tests had been done in this country, 220,000 of them in the last eight days.
Mostashari and Emanuel said there should be four types of information gathering and analysis as COVID-19 testing is expanded.
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