COVID-19 - Individual level tracking
This is a sample template of a Form that can be used to collect information at individual level. You may want to track the progress of the health of an individual patient affected by COVID-19. In that case, you may want to collect information regarding the medical institution where they have been hospitalized or tested, the dates when they were tested for the COVID-19 and the results of the tests as well as the isolation period they had to go through. At the same time, you may need to keep the individual anonymous.
In this example, we will use a Reference Form to collect all the medical institutions and their geographical location in one place to make sure that all users reporting use the same names for the medical institutions. Then, we will add a Form with a Subform to collect data for individuals. We will link the Form to the Reference Form and we will use a Serial Number to anonymize the individual.
You can create a third Form with information about this individual and link to this one using a Reference field so that only selected users can access the details of the individual.
The Form will collect the date of hospitalization and the minimum required period of isolation using a Date field and a Calculated field. We added 16 days as the minimum number of isolation days and you can change that according to the guidelines you have from your institution.
With the Subform we will collect information regarding the Dates when the individual was tested and the results of the test. For every new test, the user needs to add a new Record to the Subform.
You can use the Form and Subform Schema below to directly import the fields to a new Form and Subform and save time. You can also duplicate a Form to quickly create similar Forms if needed.
The example uses dummy data.
To make sure that all users reporting use the same names for the medical institutions, you can create a Reference Form with a Text field and add all the medical institutions of your country as Records.
By making that Text field a Key field you can then refer to it in your Form and users will be able to select from the list of available institutions the institutions for which they report. In the Reference Form you can also reference ActivityInfo’s built-in Geodatabase to link each institution to a geographical location.
- In the Database Design section, click on 'Add form' to add a Form.
- Give a name to your Form and add a Reference field to reference the Geodatabase of ActivityInfo and a Text field for the name of the institution.
- Make the Text field a Key field so as to link to it in the next Form.
- Save the Form.
- In the Table View page, click on 'Add record' and add the first institution of your country. Click on 'Save record' to save it.
- Repeat the same process to add all the medical institutions. If you have a list of institutions available you can import them as Records to this Form.
- On the URL of the Table View page you can view the Form Id of this Form. If you want to import a fields list instead of designing a Form using the Form Schemas in the end of the article, you will need to use this Id.
You can change the visibility settings of the Form to Reference data to make sure users doing data entry don't get confused with it.
The Parent Form will link to the list of medical institutions and will use a Serial Number to anonymize the individual. Users will be able to select the institution for which they are reporting from the list. It will also use a Date field with a Code to collect the date of hospitalization and it will calculate the minimum required time for isolation of the individual on the basis of 16 days. You can change this number in the Formula, to meet your needs.
- In the Database Design section, click on 'Add form' to add another Form.
- Give a name to the Form and add a Reference field. Select the Reference Form that you created in the previous step.
- Add a Serial Number. This is the Key of your Form.
- Add a Date field and give it a Code, we gave it the Label "Date of hospitalization" and the Code "DH".
- Add a Calculated field and use the Formula below to calculate the minimum required date for isolation on the basis of 16 days. We use the Code "DH". If you used another code in your Date field use that Code in its place.
adddate(DH,16)
- Add a Subform field and give it a descriptive name.
We will add a Subform to collect the date when the individual was tested and the result of the test. The Subform will include a Date field and a Single Selection field.
- Click on the Subform to open it.
- Add a Date field.
- Add a Single Selection field with Options: Positive, Negative, Not valid
- Save the Subform and then the Form.
Instead of manually designing the Form and the Subform, you can directly import the fields list to your Form. The following files contain the fields list for the Form and the Subform. As this is a sample Form, you might need different fields so can add new fields, edit fields or delete the fields that you don't need to customize the Form. The Form links to a Reference Form with a Reference field to include a list with all the medical institutions, so make sure you add a Reference Form first, as described in the first step.
- To import the fields list to the Form, add a new Form and give it a name.
- Then, download and open the first file which includes the fields list for the Parent Form. You need to find the Reference Form Id of the Reference Form from step one and add it the cell in the Row 'reference', Column 'Referenced Form'. You can find the Form Id in the URL of the Table View page of the Reference Form.
- Copy the cells along with their Headers.
- In the Form Design page, open the fields palette of the Form and click on "Paste field list from spreadsheet". Paste the cells and click on "Add fields" to add them.
- Continue with the Subform. To import the fields list to the Subform, click on the Subform to open it.
- Download the second file and copy the cells along with their Headers.
- As before, open the fields palette of the Subform and click on "Paste field list from spreadsheet".
- Paste the cells and click on "Add fields" to add them.
- Save the Subform to go back to the Parent Form.
- Save the Form.