By Tania Brenes-Arguedas, Jan Byrne, Chandler Day, and Karen Snover-Clift

On Jan. 12–14, 2021, CERIS hosted the NPDN IT/Diagnostician Meeting. This meeting was very different from previous years. For one, due to the COVID-19 restrictions, the meeting was hosted virtually. To accommodate differences in time zones, instead of two full days of work, we had three afternoons (or mornings if you were in Pacific time).

Another big difference was that this meeting had a focus on cross-committee needs. In the past, IT/Diagnostician meetings focused largely on National Data Repository (NDR) needs and updates. However, IT needs in the network are expanding greatly due to the increased role of the web portal and the introduction of the new learning management system. As these and other IT initiatives are led by committees, it made sense to focus this IT/diagnostician meeting on committees’ work related to IT.

While meeting online made conversation and discussion a little harder, it had the advantage that we could invite more people. For that reason, each day of the meeting was started by hosting a public webinar. All NPDN members were invited to attend public webinars each of the three days to learn about committee developments and IT-related developments. If you missed these webinars, you can view the recording in the 2021 IT/diagnostician meeting page, where you can also find PowerPoints, Q&A documents, and meeting minutes. What follows, is a summary of the presentations and discussions that transpired each day.
 
Day 1 of the IT/Diagnostician Meeting focused on general updates by the NPDN committees, their work during 2020, and work plan for 2021. If you missed these webinars and want to be apprised of the great work being done by NPDN committees to advance the network, you can review the recording here.
 
Following the webinars, the committee leaders reconvened in a working session to discuss updates made to the NDR that allow the upload of multiple lab methods. Attendees requested training on data upload procedures, policies, and the use of confirmation methods. This led into a conversation on the merits of the current method where confidence levels are assigned to the genus, species, and pathovar of each diagnosis made. This system has created some confusion. Several members volunteered to participate in a small working group to further consider options discussed and determine the best method to ensure diagnostic data accuracy and integrity. The Regulatory Relations Committee reported that they have been actively discussing issues related to data sharing and access, as well as resuming the use of exercise scenarios to increase communication preparedness.

Day 2 of the IT/Diagnostician Meeting focused on professional development. Two public webinars provided an overview of the professional development program. Lindsey Ashmore provided a demonstration of Adobe Captivate (a content creation tool) and LearnUpon, the learning management system (LMS) that will be used by NPDN (recording here). Ansuya Jogi, vice-chair of the Professional Development Committee, gave a description of the content development pipeline draft that is being developed by the committee (recording here). The goal of this pipeline is to ensure the continued availability and quality of NPDN professional development training.
 
Following the webinars, committee leaders reconvened to hold working group discussion sessions. During these discussions, committee leaders split into breakout sessions that allowed different committees to provide feedback and suggestions regarding the professional development committee’s current onboarding curriculum. It became clear the many committees had already been developing resources for their different activities that were going to prove useful to onboarding.

Day 3 of the IT/Diagnostician Meeting focused on IT topic areas. The day started with a public webinar given by Tania Brenes-Arguedas touring recent changes made to the web portal. It included a report from Clarissa Balbalian on the new newsletter, the NPDN Communicator. After that, Mike Hill provided an update of other IT improvements that are in the works, such as the new annual evaluation, and the upcoming diagnostic lab and member directories. You can find the recording of this webinar here.
 
The post-webinar working session started with an overview of the document management tool developed by Bugwood. Joe LaForest also explained how he, together with NPDN diagnosticians, have been developing a diagnostic protocol management system. After that, committee leaders split up into break out rooms to discuss and provide feedback on IT priorities.

Overall, the meeting provided lots of valuable information that will allow the committees, CERIS, and the leadership to better coordinate and advance their goals this coming year.
 

Explore the portal!

The 2021 IT/diagnostician meeting page can be found on the NPDN web portal under Archived Resources/Past Events in the member menu.