Table 1.

The information sources used for data gathering

Information resources	Data collection methods	Details
Articles	Literature review	In PubMed database and Google search engine the terms “COVID-19” and “SARS-CoV-2” were searched to retrieve related articles The inclusion criteria to select articles were English language, article’s relevance to the objectives, and the possibility of accessing the full text After searching and downloading the article, at the first the title and the abstract were reviewed to choose the relevant articles. At the second stage the full text of selected articles were considered
Data collection tools (forms, data sets, …)	Internet searching	The COVID-19 questioners and reporting forms were googled through the “COVID-19”, “SARS-COV-2”, “Coronavirus disease” terms and in combination with the “Data collection form”, “Data gathering form”, “Minimum data set”, “Data set”, “Data dictionary”, “Questionnaire”, “Form” terms in Persian and English languages The search period was until April 15, 2020
	Request information from experts	A preliminary study showed that some Iranian universities of medical sciences were using a specific paper-based form to register COVID-19 information. Most of the forms were used locally and not available through the internet. However, since the most of Iranian health information management experts who were using the forms are member of social networks such as WhatsApp and Telegram, the project team could access to the some of them
National health information systems	On-site review of information systems	The content and structure of the following Iranian health information systems were reviewed Management of Communicative Disease Prevention and Control system, MCMC system, SIB, and HIS
Patient medical record	Document review	The structure of medical records in Iranian hospitals is hybrid. Part of the patient’s data is documented on paper, and the other part is stored in information systems such as HIS electronically We investigated the data elements of paper-based medical record forms. Furthermore, the process of medical record documentation was reviewed
Experts (medical specialists)	Interview	The attitudes of some medical specialists (pulmonologist, infectious disease, radiologist, and internal medicine) on the minimum data set of COVID-19 have been obtained using the interview