Report 2020-612 Recommendation 3 Responses

Report 2020-612: California Department of Public Health: It Could Do More to Ensure Federal Funds for Expanding the State's COVID‑19 Testing and Contact Tracing Programs Are Used Effectively (Release Date: April 2021)

Recommendation #3 To: Public Health, Department of

To better leverage contact tracing as a tool to limit the spread of COVID-19, Public Health should, by June 15, 2021, and in collaboration with local health jurisdictions, determine what barriers exist to contact tracers successfully identifying and contacting people who may have been exposed to COVID-19. After studying those barriers, it should share best practices with the jurisdictions and encourage them to implement those practices that will be successful at overcoming the barriers.

The CDPH CT Program is continuing to utilize data and information collected via California's contact tracing data management system (CalCONNECT), and reported by LHJs through monthly Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity (ELC) Contact Tracing Performance Measures reporting and in various organized meeting forums, to identify current and evolving key barriers that hinder successful contact tracing efforts. The CT Program gathers information shared by LHJs via facilitated learning collaboratives, town halls, standing and ad-hoc check-in meetings, and CalCONNECT LHJ Governance Council meetings, as well as information shared by other states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and national partners, to identify best practices for mitigating these barriers. The CT Program, in collaboration with contracted partners from the UCSF/UCLA share these best practices with California LHJs through regular town halls, learning collaboratives, LHJ-specific technical assistance, reference documents, trainings, and a variety of other standing and ad-hoc forums and resources, and works with the LHJs to create mechanisms to facilitate implementation of these best practices using CalCONNECT system enhancements, workforce training and development opportunities, community engagement strategies, health promotion efforts, and other methods identified as important to implementation.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Status: Fully Implemented

All Recommendations in 2020-612

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.