TABLE 10.

Hospital-based surveillance: Immediate and long-term solutions proposed by the researcher.

Surveillance systems	Hospital-based surveillance
Mechanisms used	• Data records taken and reported daily. (WHO, 2020b. Surveillance strategies for COVID-19 human infection-Interim guidance, 3) (Goethem, et al. 2020).
Mechanism objective/purpose	• To identify the spread of the virus and the affected communities (Goethem, et al. 2020).
Data types collected	• Age, gender, and place of residence (WHO, 2020b. Surveillance strategies for COVID-19 human infection-Interim guidance, 3).• Illness onset date, sample collection date, admission data (WHO, 2020b. Surveillance strategies for COVID-19 human infection-Interim guidance, 3).• Type of laboratory test and laboratory test results (WHO, 2020b. Surveillance strategies for COVID-19 human infection-Interim guidance, 3).• Whether a health care worker or not (WHO, 2020b. Surveillance strategies for COVID-19 human infection-Interim guidance, 3).• Condition of the patient, severe or not, at the time of reporting, post-admission medication ventilation or in intensive care unit (WHO, 2020b. Surveillance strategies for COVID-19 human infection-Interim guidance, 3).• Either the discharge date or cause of death, as applicable (WHO, 2020b. Surveillance strategies for COVID-19 human infection-Interim guidance, 3).
Privacy risks and implications	• Breaches of sensitive health information will reveal clinical information of the patients, their inherent health conditions, and the entire medical records (Beltran-Aroca, 2016).
Preventive mechanisms applied	• Blockchain technology has been suggested for use in the health care sector (Seiferty, 2020).
The researcher proposed immediate solutions	• Limit access to the patient medical record.• Back up medical records at least twice a week.• Should not share the identifiable information with the media groups without the patient’s consent (Zhang, 2020).• It seemed important to share information with other organisations, to be aware of the severity of the virus, always choose anonymised data, limited data as much as possible (ICO. N.D. Principle (e): Storage limitation).
The researcher proposed long term solutions	• Need a global level mechanism/policy limiting maximum time duration the authorities are allowed for storing information.• If the authorities are interested in retaining collected data for research purposes, only the anonymised data should be used (ICO. N.D. Principle (e): Storage limitation).