Data Analytics Tool Helps Design COVID-19 Testing Strategies

A data analytics tool shows organizations how different COVID-19 testing strategies and other mitigation methods can help reduce the spread of the virus.

Funded by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NBIB), the COVID-19 Testing Impact Calculator is a free resource that can help schools, businesses, and other entities pick a COVID-19 testing strategy that best fits their needs.

The Consortia for Improving Medicine with Innovation and Technology (CIMIT) at Massachusetts General Hospital developed the tool in collaboration with researchers at MIT.

The technology models the costs and benefits of COVID-19 testing strategies for individual organizations. Using just a few details about the organizations, the tool can generate customized scenarios for surveillance testing.

The tool models four different COVID-19 testing methods, including onsite and lab-based, and estimates the number of people to test each day. Additionally, the tool shows the estimated cost of each testing option and describes the speed and accuracy of each kind of test.

Researchers developed the data analytics tool as part of NIH’s Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) Tech program, which aims to speed innovation in the development, commercialization, and implementation of technologies for COVID-19 testing.

“The NIH RADx initiative has enabled innovation and growth in the creation of new, rapid COVID-19 testing technologies,” said Bruce J. Tromberg, PhD, director of NIBIB and lead for the RADx Tech program.

“Using this tool, school administrators and business owners can quickly evaluate the cost and performance of different tests to help find the best match for their unique organization.”

The COVID-19 Testing Impact Calculator also demonstrates how CDC-recommended measures – such as mask wearing, contact tracing, and social distancing – can work in conjunction with testing to further reduce the spread of the virus.

Users can enter which of these measures are in place at their organization and the tool integrates this data to produce testing recommendations. When they adjust this information, users can get a comprehensive view of how implementing simple countermeasures can significantly reduce their testing costs.

For example, at a site that allows mask-less activities like meetings or dining, cutting the group size down from 12 to six reduces the cost of the recommended testing strategy by more than half. Leaders can use the tool to better understand how implementing these practices in addition to testing can keep their organizations open safely, at lower costs.

“Providing schools and businesses with clear guidance on risk-reducing behaviors and testing helps them stay open safely, which is valuable for the economy and society as a whole,” said Nancy Gagliano, MD, leader of the RADx Tech Implementation Core. “There is nothing available like this in the country.”

The technology can provide a viable alternative to all-or-nothing approaches, researchers noted.

“A false dichotomy is often perpetuated that we must either stop COVID or reopen the economy,” said Anette Hosoi, PhD, associate dean of engineering and the Neil and Jane Pappalardo Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT.

“But we know a lot now about how this disease spreads and the answer is not an either/or proposition. We know what kinds of measures are necessary to keep things running and mitigate the spread while operating—maybe not under normal conditions, but certainly under functional conditions.”

The COVID-19 Testing Impact Calculator is the latest effort from industry researchers to combine data analytics and social science methods to reduce the impact of the pandemic.

In June, a team from the University of Texas at Austin analyzed COVID-19 data in 58 cities and showed that for each day’s delay in social distancing, a coronavirus outbreak lasts days longer.

With the COVID-19 Testing Impact Calculator, leaders can better prepare for and reduce the spread of the coronavirus.

“The calculator is a major enabler for test-technologies being developed, commercialized and deployed with help from the RADx Tech program,” said Paul Tessier, PhD, co-developer of the tool and product development director at CIMIT, the RADx Tech coordinating center.

“We are excited to join forces with MIT’s Institute for Data, Systems, and Society to advance a decision-making tool for operating safely.”