A reporting error in the number of COVID-19 cases by Vidant Health has resulted in the Halifax County Public Health System subtracting two from its total number of positives.
Vidant said in a statement released late Saturday night it sent an electronic update to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services which contained inaccurate COVID-19 test results.
“We determined this was a technical error affecting 122 results and the data feed issue has since been corrected,” Vidant said. “It is important to point out that the actual lab test results in Vidant’s electronic medical record were correct; there was a technical issue with transmitting data to the state. We are currently working with NCDHHS to update the data. We apologize for any confusion this has caused the state, local health departments and patients.”
The News & Observer of Raleigh reported today an email announcement from NCDHHS said every test received from Vidant Health was counted as positive for Saturday’s update. The mistake inflated the total number of cases by 81.
The paper also reported that even with the adjustment, Saturday’s daily increase of 490 COVID-19 cases remained the largest single-day number of new cases the state has recorded since the pandemic began in March. The state reported 444 new cases on Friday.
The state department released its regular daily update today, showing a smaller number of new cases, 288, for a total of 8,830 cases with 299 deaths.
Halifax County Public Health System Director Bruce Robistow said in an update this afternoon, the error reduces the number of positive novel coronavirus cases by two. He also said there were no new positive cases reported today.
Accounting for the Vidant error, the county’s positive COVID-19 count is now 51, compared to the 53 reported Saturday.
There remains one related death and there have been 24 patients who have recovered. There are seven test results pending and there have been 234 negative test results. The health system is aware of 292 tests which have been performed in the county.
Discussing the reporting error by Vidant, Robistow said in the update, “It appears that Halifax and Edgecombe counties’ communicable disease teams both discovered the discrepancy in what Vidant reported to us versus what the state lab had regarding the same patients.”
After communicating with the Edgecombe team, “We both initiated a concerted effort to resolve the concern by reaching out to all agencies involved. We made urgent calls to the state lab, the department of health and human services, the communicable disease branch, Vidant North, Vidant Edgecombe and the main Vidant Hospital.”
Robistow said all agencies went into immediate action to discover what failed, resolve the issue, and correct the errors in just a matter of hours. “The teamwork and communication was well coordinated, immediate and very productive. The issue that caused the error in reporting was quickly discovered, the tests that were affected were quickly isolated and corrected so that the report now reflected accurate results. And a fix was put in place to prevent the problem from recurring. The updated data was quickly released to all counties affected and all the health departments have updated the reports affected.”
Said Robistow: “Mistakes happen, and every day that we work with COVID-19,we learn so many things. Yesterday was no exception.”
He said there were upsides to the reporting error.
These were negative reports reported as positive, not positives reported as negative. “It is fortunate that the latter did not happen. The incredible teamwork of all of those working on the front lines and behind the scenes in an effort to ensure the public health of North Carolina citizens was impressive to say the least. There was great communication, collaboration, and a rapid resolution that came from the impressive collaboration of all involved.”
Said Robistow: The take away for me is that the commitment, professionalism, and readiness of everyone involved was tested and proved to be both always ready and very effective. I appreciated that Vidant quickly put out a full disclosure press release, and that all counties affected were provided corrected and accurate information before yesterday ended.
“There are takeaways and lessons learned, as well as process improvements that resulted from this incident. We have incredible people and organizations working to protect all of you, and every one of them, in my opinion and observation, did an incredible job. I am proud, and appreciate working with all of them.”
Northampton County
In its update this afternoon, the Northampton County Health Department reported there are still 82 total positive COVID-19 cases of which 57 have recovered and three related deaths.
