Work sharing and controlled workflow processes have many advantages and can simplify complex workflows. With SORMAS, you can use a basic process model that facilitates a transparent procedure in contact person management based on the division of labor. It has been developed in cooperation with the Health Department of the City of Nuremberg and the TH Nuremberg.

The complex tasks of containment are often handled by changing personnel. Here, a structured procedure based on the flow principle is the best way to divide the work: All tasks are broken down into small, manageable subtasks that can be worked through quickly, step by step. This makes the overall process much more transparent and thus easier to control.

Based on the experience of the Nuremberg Health Department, the Academy for Public Health in cooperation with the City of Nuremberg and the Technical University of Nuremberg has developed a basic process model that you can use with SORMAS. Index and contact persons can be passed from team to team in a continuous workflow. Each team only needs to specialize in a relatively small number of individual tasks. The workflow is controlled consistently via the “tasks” in SORMAS and thus remains traceable at all times. This has the advantage that new employees only have to learn parts of the containment process in detail and can therefore be trained more quickly. In addition, it is possible to see at any time how much needs to be done in which task area, where bottlenecks exist and where personnel may be needed.

The basic process model is visually represented in detailed steps in comprehensive documentation. You can move interactively through the process model and follow each work step click by click in SORMAS.

The health department of the city of Nuremberg has already been using this process since 2020, initially in its own software solution, and then also implemented it in SORMAS in July 2021 with the transfer of the data. Since August 2021, more than 6,500 cases and more than 7,700 KP situations with over 1,500 events have been processed in SORMAS using the flow principle. In the process, more than 45,000 tasks were generated across all sub-steps and processed and monitored by the Nuremberg City Health Department.

The division into detailed work steps is not only suitable for large health offices, but also for the organization of containment in small offices. This makes the complex field of containment more transparent: Efforts and activities are easier to control. The interactive PDFs explain step by step the processes in the individual work steps. They are suitable, for example, for training employees in the individual process teams.

For more details on the history of process development, see the article “Surfing the Health Department – Digital Transformation in Corona Containment,” link: https://doi.org/10.1365/s40702-021-00735-x

If you have any questions about the use of SORMAS according to the flow principle, you have the opportunity to address them directly to your colleagues from the Nuremberg Health Department in the weekly SORMAS experience exchange.