OHSU COVID-19 collection

The collection consists of digital materials created during the COVID-19 pandemic by Oregon Health & Science University, from 2020 to 2021. It is arranged into six series: 1. Documents, 2. Emails, 3. Web captures, 4. Public health messages, 5. Financial response and impacts, and 6. Documenting COVID-19 project. This collection will continue to grow, with new materials being added regularly as the pandemic ensues.

Materials in the “Documents” series were produced by Business Intelligence & Advanced Analytics, part of OHSU’s Information Technology Group, from March 26, 2020 to December 31, 2021. “Dashboard” documents were introduced to the pandemic response at OHSU on July 1, 2020, and were distributed daily to OHSU employees, faculty, and staff. They were intended to represent a comprehensive picture of COVID-19 at OHSU, including data from patients and staff. Dashboards depict testing rates and breakdowns according to various demographics, and are primarily comprised of graphs. The collection contains approximately one dashboard per week from July 2020 onward. “Forecasts” were produced by OHSU’s lead data scientist, Dr. Peter Graven, providing weekly updates and projections for COVID in Oregon and beyond. OHSU began using Dr. Graven’s forecast model in March of 2020. Forecasts were distributed among OHSU employees and public, and were also used to inform the Oregon Health Authority. Forecasts contain projections regarding hospital occupancy, case numbers, and the efficacy of Oregon State pandemic policies. Forecasts include text and graphs. The collection contains forecasts from July 2020 onward. “Hospitalizations” contain data regarding COVID-19 cases in the OHSU hospital system, created in order to monitor capacity during the delta variant surge. Hospitalization cases are broken down by the number of patients in intensive care, the number of patients on a ventilator, and the number of patients who had been previously vaccinated for COVID-19. Distribution by demographics such as age, race, ethnicity, sex at birth, region, and primary language are depicted as well. The series contains hospitalization documents from August 20 to December 30, 2021. “PPE supply status” tables were created for internal use at OHSU in order to track supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE), such as goggles, face shields, and various types of masks. “Action needed” is recorded for each supply item, such as “conserve supply,” or “deploy substitutes.” The series contains PPE supply status tables in English from March 26, 2020 onward, and in Spanish from April 23, 2020. “Vaccination trends” documents record vaccination trends in the OHSU health system. Data is shown by doses per day, future scheduled appointments, and total doses administered by site. Vaccination data is also detailed according to demographic information. The series contains vaccination trend documents beginning January 2021, at intervals of about one week.

The “Emails” series is comprised of daily update and other emails, from March 7, 2020 to December 30, 2021. “Daily update emails” contain information distributed to all OHSU employees, including notifications about campus closures, highlights from recent tracking data, the latest safety protocols, and important information about employee resources offered in response to the pandemic. Daily update emails also include “Spreading Good” entries -- short profiles of OHSU community members in the response to COVID-19, beginning March 18, 2020. “Other emails” contain updated information about COVID-19 at OHSU, and in the region, which is not included in daily updates. These include emails for specific groups in the community, such as students or those in management positions. They also include messages, distributed institution-wide, from OHSU leadership.

The “Web captures” series holds OHSU intranet webpages in static form, dated February to April 2020. Webpages are primarily from OHSU’s internal news page, OHSU Now. Communications follow the first presumptive case of COVID-19 in an Oregon resident, and the earliest responses to the pandemic amongst the OHSU community. Web captures feature text and images, and some user comments have been retained. Many publicly available OHSU websites have been saved in the OHSU web archive.

The “Public health messages” series is arranged into two subseries: “4a. Stay Home, Save Lives,” spanning March 23 to May 12, 2020, and corresponding to Oregon’s stay at home order, and “4b. Oregon Forward,” spanning May 22 to August 20, 2020. Each subseries contains graphics with important information about COVID-19, which were distributed on Facebook and Twitter. These messages were sponsored by OHSU and the State of Oregon. Additional outreach messages published to Twitter are also available in the OHSU web archive.

The “Financial response and impacts” series contains projections of the financial impact of the pandemic on OHSU, distributed April 23, 2020. Each document addresses how actions in response to these projections will impact a different employee classification: unclassified administrators, research employees, and faculty.

The “Documenting COVID-19 project” series includes submissions from members of the OHSU community, from March 19 to May 27, 2020. It features personal reflections, poetry, and photographs. Submissions largely represent the student perspective, reflecting the fear and uncertainty of the first days of the pandemic.