Dashboard will track Polk County's student illnesses
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The Polk County Health Department is developing an automated school illness dashboard.
Why it matters: It's intended to better track outbreaks and prevent them from becoming a public health crisis.
Driving the news: Eight of Polk County's nine school districts have signed data sharing agreements for the dashboard, Addie Olson, a spokesperson for the Polk County Health Department, tells Axios.
- The ninth, Johnston, could be finalized soon, she said.
How it works: Schools will automatically send the health department student illness and attendance data from their student information systems nightly.
- The data can include school, grade, age group, gender, ZIP code, attendance date and absence codes — but not names or other information that could identify individual students.
- When illness-related absences begin to rise, the department will investigate and take mitigation steps before absences reach the previous 10% reporting threshold that school nurses would report to the department.
State of play: The dashboard is being set up for internal use, but a public version could follow once the department is assured that the system is accurate and functioning properly.
- It's being built and managed by county staff, and it will not incur additional costs to schools or the county, Olson said.
Between the lines: The effort comes as Polk County Health on Wednesday confirmed a measles case and listed 10 metro locations where others may have been exposed between July 1 and July 5 — a reminder of why early disease surveillance matters.
What's next: The department hopes to use the system in the upcoming school year.