Human-Centered Response to COVID-19 Exposures

Janell Schafer, Digital Service Expert, Colorado Digital Service (CDS)

Focus: Collaborates with a diverse team to tackle Colorado’s most pressing technical challenges through human-centered solutions Innovation: First state, after Washington, D.C., to launch COVID-19 exposure notifications using Bluetooth technology “It really matters how you define failure, and what you’re tying it to. When you define failure, sometimes you don’t know what that looks like.”

Depending on the nature of your work, your job description may not tell the full story of your reach. That’s both the challenge and beauty of what makes problem-solving impactful and rewarding for the cross-functional group at CDS. The team joined forces with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to launch CO Exposure Notifications. The free and voluntary service, developed in partnership with Google and Apple, notifies users of possible exposure to COVID-19. Users opt in with an Android or iPhone device, and the phones share anonymous tokens with other CO Exposure Notifications users via Bluetooth.

We extrapolated key details from Schafer about that project, including what was vital to success and how an unconventional yet healthy perspective on failure worked in CDS’s favor.

Beginning on October 25,

Embrace the power of embedding Apple & Android users “That concept of embedding was really crucial will receive a push to our success because that allowed us to champion and put forward technology in notification about the service of public health,” she said. Embedding is commonplace for government digital services teams and involves them being hands-on and working alongside partner agencies. Whether CDS was designing or building, the iPhone users will be work was centered on the mission of that agency and the diverse community it serves. able to opt-in through

their settings

Partner with and become a mentor state

In addition to working closely with Apple and Google, CDS also partnered with Washington, D.C., Canada, Germany, Virginia and Ireland to glean lessons learned from implementing other types of exposure notifications technology. But they didn’t stop there. Armed with added knowledge from their own experience, Colorado became a mentor state, sharing insights with California, Maryland and Massachusetts to get their programs running.

“They’ll share their experiences openly and candidly, so you can learn and feel like you have the support as you’re making these tough decisions,” Schafer said of fellow mentor states. Redefine failure through iterative improvements

The team improved and modified app features to adapt to users’ needs and respond to the changing public health crisis in real time. Initially, the state saw a a 98.2% increase in user engagement. A year later, the second improvement showed a 34% increase.

“When we think about failing, it’s something that doesn’t serve the community, or those that need it,” Schafer said. “By tying that definition of failure to our actual community, I think it makes us able to process with our partners more holistically.” With the exposure notifications, the team realized early on that people who tested positive had trouble using the system to manually report their positivity status. Once the team put an automated script in place, it became easier for people to confirm a positive test and overall usage increased.

“We did get some things wrong, but they weren’t a failure,” Schafer said. “It was an opportunity to improve.”