ALC-Data-Sharing and Data-Driven Decision-Making Subcommittee

Good morning glad to see this is a sparse groups so let join in here and come to the center if you can or you will you want to. In that rather than would be always kind of like to have some of these things be more conversational them people just making presentations so if you've got some questions to ask this because of got some good presentations to make today you have some questions to ask then I hope you will be make it conversational and questioning so. Mister Lowry. Thank you senator English Preciado to putting together this agenda for this first organizational meeting of our subcommittee we're looking forward to hearing the information that as can be proper for state thank you for those of you you the came in early this morning to be with us Monday is it that the only day we could meet. Yes okay so what we just need to do is we just need to this talk about the fact that we have created this a LC special subcommittee and it's really a continuation of the task force on data transparency that we had of during the during the last in Rome so this will continue on exploring how we use the data that we all that is collected throughout the state government to serve all the people in the in the state. So let me see. why don't you all can we bring couple more cheers up in what you all come on up here. And set up the tent let's get some chairs and just move over there so they can. Thank you have a sit down. Our sales department. The health department Okay Mister Porter is on its way. super. All right good good. Okay all right so let me introduce Josh Magee who is the US states that officer talk a little bit about his role in the role the TPP that's the states transparency panel talk a little bit about that. Thank you senator English appreciate the invite talk today we're excited to share with you all some of the work we've been doing so well as Senator English mentioned I'm the recent appointee is the state's chief data officer what that means is I am in charge of helping the state link up all its administrative data and use that to improve program policy and practice. So there you guys have passed some enabling legislation that is push the state in this direction so ACT nine twelve twenty seventeen ACT nine thirty six of twenty nineteen created my role created the data transparency panel and require the data transparency panel to do some things around integrated data to study and create a report on what it would take for the state to create a statewide longitudinal data system so what is that really an SL the us is an administrative is a data system that links administrative data from across the state brings it all together by link I mean I'll allows records to be harmonized together so that you can follow individuals across programs across agencies and then use this information as I said to improve policy programs and practice practices through evidence based collaboration Senator English we've had several conversations we have as one of our goals the enhancement of the state's converse eight conversations around how to use data how to create evidence around issues that we care about priority problems priority issue areas where we want to make progress we've got the data resources to make it happen but we need to stand up to capacity to use those data in a way that would help us improve over time. The data and transparency panel includes representation from state agencies across the state and is tasked with kind of studying how to use administrative data how to stand up this SL DS capacity it's a meeting for quite sometime was meeting before I came on board and hear some points of agreement you have these and in front of you but folks from across the spectrum from across state government state agencies agreed that the state needs this SO the S. capacity to link data across agencies the division of information services and the office of the CTO are taking the lead and helping create that capacity work currently developing a data governance framework and building the so the US infrastructure that would facilitate linking data across agencies and also working to enhance the usability of data inside our agencies so making it more user friendly so it's not just the experts that can play with the date and give you a PDF back but allowing agencies themselves are going to hear a little bit about that agencies themselves create their own analyses. The S. R. which we're gonna talk about what you have a copy of is an example of house the state can leverage its SO DS capacity to integrate valuable data to better inform policy and practice. One set that what he's talking about is the the economic security report that you all have in front of you which some of you may or may not have ever seen before but it's a valuable tool to very beginning thing rips Senator Alan Clark pass legislation in two thousand and fifteen that made this a requirement every single year so that the you look in here you can see that this is got schools from all over the state and their programs starting salaries so on so forth you go ahead. No that's great so as Senator English mention this is required in legislation required to be produced annually uses link the ministry of data from the division of workforce services and the division of higher education summarizes workforce outcomes by higher education entity program and certification or degree level so there's a wealth of information in this report that's produces a PDF every year and it's provided institutions students in the public DWS use that is valuable labor market information in DHT help uses it to help evaluate new and existing degree programs and and documents going to talk a little bit about that the I. **** work with the W. S. and DHT to enhance the S. R. so today it's been a PDF we've talked a lot about increasing the usability of our administrative data we have work to try to make this a more dynamic report where is not just a PDF but it can pull the data in real time and create reports that that folks want to see in real time when they have questions that can be answered using the data we also want to provide a self service platform that allows users inside agencies to do more with the date on their own to democratize that data a little bit more we also want to talk about additional enhancements that would allow other user groups not just those inside state government so institutions of higher ed we're gonna talk about that a little bit have them use this data to get ahead of the process to better anticipate where they might want to start programs and then we also want to talk about how to get this the student's parents in a way that they can use to investigate options for themselves and better understand what the labor market looks like so with that we're going to talk a little bit more in depth about the S. R. in the data here again this is just one example of how the state can leverage is data resources to do more To inform policy and practice we want to do this across a whole host of data sets we're gonna go deep right now in the economic security port so many handed off to the division of workforce services here. Take your mask off to target these will be easier thank you. We can hear you better. Thanks. Morning committing a my name is Chris Jones I am the administrator of the workforce innovation and opportunity act grants. I work with the division of workforce services. And of. One of the reports that we put out each year not as a requirement of those grants but under the law that was passed in two thousand fifteen the division of workforce services within the department of workforce services with was tasked with printed producing the economic security report that you have in front of you. What the data that that relies on is a combination of higher education data about programs pass rates participants in the programs combined with you wage data we mention the ability to do real time data possible in the future of course the wages data lags by a quarter has to be analyzed and reviewed for integrity before can be published but I do think there's a lot of potential to take this report and make it something closer to real time with some of the other data that you can immediately look at such as job postings data we've worked with add flow to look at reports that are similar to this one but not even look into things such as work experience and how that plays into wage changes in industries eight there's a lot of potential just analyzing the weights data itself if it's aggregated in a way that we can share it which I think Senator English is one of the goals is to make the information more public more interactive and to get there I think we do have to to figure out a lot of what we've nailed down in the economic security report which is aggregating a lot of uh personal data. So with that said there's a lot of potential just in the database that we've that we've created to mock up a of another economic security report. So right now the Arkansas research center has produce that report annually for us they've done a great job and a lot of subject matter expertise there. And we've been able to recreate the look and feel that you have the report itself is focused on employment after completion and also median wage after certain increments of Tom and which really. In the workforce development in world that's how you sell the value of a program. One of the things the way you were looking at just immediately we wanted to get a get some ideas about how we can tweak the report and look at things in a different levels than what the current PDF does one of the shortcomings of the current AS or is that it is not interactive and it's very difficult to slice it any other way so basically you have the college level data program level data median wage and placement one of the templates that we came up with was slicing that data by county which is very easy to do and the self service portal that I bought I think we might talk a little bit more about later it's a it's a quick adjustment in the system to go from slicing data on a program level to a county level or an industry level so there's a lot of potential there. and also. We have a lot of reporting requirements with the workforce development grants. One of the things that we how well or the workforce innovation opportunity ACT has always required is. That we look at the success of the the training programs you have to be reviewed annually and on going to be on the list of eligible training providers that is something that's required before our funds can pay for training program you have to show with that the occupation that that training leads to present the man. And you also have some some benchmarks that were worked into the law where you have to meet certain standards for what kind of wages and things like that and placement at post training. So the workforce development arena has been looking at this type of data for some time. under the workforce innovation opportunity ACT we were also required to start collecting data on non we'll let participants so we have this federal requirement that really ask for a lot more than we had ever asked for before and but due to the lack of capacity to do that the state was granted a waiver I see some potential here to be able to do just that we what we would be able to collect more information on the training for programs as a whole which is a little more than what we're doing right now. So I wanted my part in the in this conversation is really talking about the the benefit to my programs which are the title one adult to youth and dislocated worker programs. And so those are just some of the things that we discussed as potential next steps. Well so yeah I'm excited to be here and doctor. He said to be here doctor Nathan Smith that from an employee of the department of commerce. And. I'm probably one of the top or maybe the top sort of power user of the yes are forced actionable decisions right now I use the SR for to do work force analyses for higher ed and FOR the past almost two years then every time. A higher rate institution wants to propose a new academic program or reconfigure an academic program then they send the work force analysis request to me and I have some teammates to sometimes help me out with that but most mostly it's done by me Which they can use to assess whether graduates are likely to get good jobs on the other end so the ESR data is of very valuable for this purpose of because it's a very granular source so we can look at all of the other. Programs at that school see how well students at that school of a generally been doing in finding jobs in making good wages I can look at similar programs across the state. And. Check based if you're introducing. A program in field of study axe I can see what other schools are offering programs in the field of study axe and how well have those graduates been doing so that's using state data sources we also have access to a tool called tumor analytics which assembles data nationally generally from federal government sources a lot of it we could get elsewhere and then we can we combine these two sources Each workforce analysis will generally have three sections and we've changed the format a bit over time as we. Me just Rifaat how we did things partly based on feedback partly based on. Trying to make things easier for ourselves because this is often been a pretty large workload which. We don't necessarily have a lot of Time set aside for we have a lot of other responsibilities and this is one that isn't always recognized as is being something we do by the people above us so they don't necessarily budget for that when they give us tasks and so we've had to sort of scale back our efforts in certain ways to try to make things really streamlined really efficient so partly with a view to that we've got it down to the point where we have an institution focused section which is standard for the institution we drop the same one and no matter how many workforce analysis request we got from that institution and occupation focused section which is really about the field of study and amassed occupations. And that would be the same and then there will be an introductory section that's more specifically focused on this particular program so then we might do analysis of to the labor market in the counties immediately around that or we might look at a lot of job posting state pull one job posting state and look at that so. These reports are strictly advisory. So the institutions don't have to listen to us there've been some occasions where I wish that we did have authority to make them listen to us but most of the time I think it's perfectly right that they have that option because they know a lot of stuff we don't we do our best but there's there limits on what we know based on the data sources we have so as we in rich the data sources this might be something that we could think about revisiting if we got to the stage where we felt like we had a really a stronger grasp then then maybe we can say that but they're they're quite you limits on the S. R. which so just some examples you know we don't we don't know what's happening with graduate to move out of state. we don't know we don't see graduates who are self employed. If graduates aren't working then we don't know if there is state home parents or if they're unemployed mom and dad's basement so there are a lot of. Challenges to interpreting the data I think if you look at the SR and you start looking a particular schools in particular programs then frequently will look bad it will not be what higher ed institutions of want to put forward because they think they're graduates are doing a lot better than what that data shows and so we can kind of work around that by making comparisons saying Hey you're actually doing better than other programs in the state and you're probably doing better than these numbers show too because we can't pick up all of the earnings the graduates have we don't see that was the move out of state so on because of the limitations of the data but the comparisons can still be ill illuminating up to a point So we would like to improve on this for one thing we've had often slow turnarounds on these for the reasons that I mentioned we have lots of tests on our plate I have to write a narrative and I think the narrative is very important because I think this just reading that yes are is a very easy it's not very easy to interpret what it means and so that's a big part of the value that I think we and is providing this narrative we also pull from sources that the schools can't see and we also there's one other model we have that we pulled from the American community survey which is the as a census bureau product that shows over the whole lifecycle how well do people in different majors earned so we have a lot of content in that that the schools wouldn't be able to get up for themselves and then we help to kind of interpreted through through adding a narrative but that's fairly labor intensive so there's sort of a slow turn around to be very desirable to schools that self service and could pull a lot of the same numbers whatever they want them as their brainstorming what types of programs that they would want introduce rather than you know always need to wait for us ought to turn things around there's a lot of other information that we could add if we had the staff time in the resources and then there's other information that we could add if we had better access to data and rich data One example would be a job stability after completion. two people work transient ops move from job to job or do they find to land a good job it's going to keep him going for years that tends to be the best way to the middle to the middle class sort of high turnover type of a career pans don't intend to By the very successful career paths in the long run and that's something we can see we can see in the wage data whether somebody is up continuously working for the same employer and I can say that because a I've also under separate data sharing agreement we worked out with I work for services awhile back I've seen the you I we stated in an anonymized format and we've done a lot of analysis on. How long people stay in jobs after they get them and how this varies by industry So job stability is something we could shed light on we could shed light on what industries graduates are working in. That's not in the S. R. that you see. And but sometimes that could shed a lot of light on the success of the program. so and in another case is not so much I. T. people work in all sorts of different industries somebody finishes the degree in computer science and it gets a job in in banking or in hospitality reviewed almost any industry they could be working in their field but if they get a degree in forestry. And they're working in foods it the combination of food services well that that degree probably didn't work for that it probably didn't fill their their professional goals so sometimes it knowing what industry they work in concert in a lot of light because look a longer term ring earnings this just shows the third to sixth quarters after graduation obviously we care about. Not just the first year but but many years after that and then it could be a very different story The ages frequently. There's a life cycle affect in earnings in general where as people get older and more experienced there we just tend to go up. So if you have a degree program that is attracting mid career students and then you have what look like good work force outcomes all that just maybe because those are experienced people who were mid career already they may not this is really gotten much from the program per se so this is something that it would be nice to know would be nice to control for on and then how much did they earn before the the program if they have a work history before that so let's see the next slide is just an example of some of the fancy analytics that we can do this is for all the industries and it shows the. Share of the employees who were working in at the end of two thousand eighteen. Who had been hired since two thousand sixteen so this is an indicator of a job duration job stability by industry and there's a big variety so an accommodation and food services well over seventy percent of those who were working in that industry the end of two thousand eighteen were hired since two thousand sixteen. In utilities it's under forty percent. The some industries have a lot more job stability than others and that sent a valuable fact to know I think if you're if you're planning a career and that's something we can standardize incorporate into the S. R. after some fashion The next slide is some ideas for the future so it would be nice if we knew hours. That would be a bit more of the paperwork burden on employers that have to tell the state how many hours people worked but if we knew that then we can figure out who's really working full time. And it would be nice to draw on a broader set of higher education institutions maybe if the private schools are interested in participating of we could deliver value to them so that they wanted to that would be great I think of the fascinating if we can get even kind of cutting edge ed tech providers to participate but that might be pie in the sky but you know how do people do if they do a corsair degree or something like that so then so what the things that we could do. If we had and rich data sources we might be able to shed light on how many graduates are really working full time we had ours how many graduates leave their home town or the state so if we knew more about the addresses where people live if we did data sharing with the DMV. Well then we can figure out where people are living so that which an interesting light data sharing with other states that's how you'd figure out who's moving moving away how many graduates are working in their field if we had occupation data in the wage data then we could try to figure out who's working in that field are you but I made a ton okay All weather graduates are actually prosperous or economic distress this is an important one because if somebody has very lower earnings that may be because they're in real economic distress or it may be because They're at a part time worker who is married to somebody with a good income and they're looking after kids. And they'd they're doing just fine. And we can't tell just by looking at their data but if we could share data with the tax authorities. That's a different story and we may be able to figure out okay. Graduates of this degree program have low average earnings but that's because an unusually large number of them were just secondary earners and their household to doing just fine so we don't really need to worry about the lower ranks in that degree residences another degree it might be more cause for concern We could figure out of based on their backgrounds I think this is really important sometimes a degree program might look like they have great outcomes but that's because they're managing to recruit people who were very likely to thrive in life anyway they had lots of advantages and privileges from it from their their upbringing in the cave troll school so forth in other cases you might have a degree program at the graduates are not doing very well in terms of their average wages but if you saw where they're coming from. Then that may be as a success story they maybe being kept off welfare kept out of prison by going to this school we just don't know we don't see the data for that but if we could share with a twelve for example then we could shed a lot more light on that we could figure out if we could share with DHS and with other programs have been workforce services we can figure out how many graduates are on welfare. if we could show with corrections you might be able to figure out how many of them are in prison and it by the brilliant calling Nicolas bill **** when it should in this presentation you went to town looking up other data sources we could use he found that data from the college scorecard which we could pretty much used today and this. This might enable us to achieve in implemented mandate in ACT eight fifty two what where we're supposed to be actually looking at student debt but it's ever been done because he never had the data sources to do it but I think this is really important our students going into a lot of that and then not being able to earn much well that's a big problem. If you can get an education for free and then not earn much will maybe that still wasn't such a bad bargain may be okay with that but it's but if you've got a lot of that and then not earning much that's much more of a problem any found also SAT and ACT score data. Up by schools of this is stuff that we could pull so that there's a lot of ways that we can rich this. And what we need on the one hand is resources which may just being current staff being able to devote devote more time to this function because we get more recognition for it and and then also more data sharing with the wider range of agencies and I think also feedback I mean I think we have got some feedback from higher ed sometimes I get calls but there's no real formal way of doing this we don't have like a monthly meeting where everybody who had a workforce analysis is requested to come in and give us feedback on whether we you gave gave them inside or not I'd love to hear from them more I got a request the first time that I presented workforce analyses to the chief academic officer is in the state one of them they like my presentation and said Hey do you take this show on the road do you want me to drive out to her college and speak to students about what their career prospects would be based on the data analytics that we've done and I said I would love to do that but did then you know as it turns out to and I have too many other things on my plate and A you know this is just something I kind of do on the site so that it could make the time for that but that might be in a direction to go as well so I think I mean if you look at the SR and you know your eyes may glaze over a little bit maybe a little bit hard to interpret it interpret the data but that's what we specialize in we really want to bring out the meaning of it bringing home the people help them get to get to the take aways so that they have the data but they also have a little bit of help interpreting it and I one more here which is just in the another example of analytics that we did and on this question of whether people work in their fields and so on one axis in this chart then you have the percent who are considered matched so this is based on the national center for education statistics has has tried to figure out what fields of study match. With which occupations. In the American community survey census bureau product we can see the occupation in the field of study so we can try to match them up and figure out who's working in their field who isn't and so you see in the largest occupations some of them most of the people are working in that field they got a roll of an education others of the most people didn't. And sometimes the occupations were a lot of people are matched also have higher wages but often not and I think chief executives is an example of one where most of the people didn't have in that state education to that but there are on average pretty high wages up so. So that really complicates the picture of do we want to train people for a particular job well sometimes that works well but a lot of times people might just get a general education of some sort and then then they thrive in the workplace and so maybe employers are just looking for a sign of conscientious sensor intelligence so that's it also a something to bear in mind as you're thinking about of education to career pathways so all this effort I'd say is I see it as trying to realise the the mandate of ACT nine thirty six of two thousand seventeen trying to a line higher education offerings in order to enhance were education to workforce pipelines and I don't think that we've. Done it as well as we should I think I think there's lots of room to go before we really living up to the mandate of ACT nine thirty six but I think this is a starting place this is something to build on and would love to get your advice in your help as as we try to move forward and do better. Thank you very much we do have a couple questions here that city Representative love. Sorry. Representative love. Thank you thank you madam chair okay Sir I'm going back in I'm I'm listenin I want to go back to the workforce development. We're time not data data sources and I guess this can be directed by and with my data sources now I can remember just this past session durable state try to pass some legislation in regards to the collection of some of this information is this is this did that piece of legislation plan to and to any of this information that you're talking about because I I can remember and that there were some businesses that were reluctant in in providing that information that's why we were trying to get the occupation level data but in turn on your microphone think of I'm sorry what other to my voice doesn't carry very much yes we do we were trying to expand the surveys for the on the occupation side of the data for the wage surveys and it did not land that it is a heavy lift also typically the states that have that legislation there's not a whole lot of teeth to non compliance it is still It still it just optional but they go so far as requested. Just adding to that so there's a standard survey that DWS does right now that is with employers and they also collect information on people who file for unemployment insurance and and benefits that employer survey could be enhanced to collect hours to collect specific industry information that's not collected now but you would have more non compliance is is what Mister Jones is saying I think there are enhancements we could have doctor Smith mention hours there several state to collect hours that allow you to know more about percentage of employment which is important in a in the type of economy we're in right now both with increasing get work as well as with at less than full employment due to cope it so that would be an enhancement other states do it with a pretty good track record I think would be interesting to talk about enhancements but even with just the wages employment is that we get right now we can do a lot and all the information here was done with the information is already collected administratively through that survey. Okay so are we saying that we don't need the legislation we sent on that we do need to legislation which which one is it because I I guess I'm I'm more interested in math and making the the data richer so that we can actually. move forward in some of the pieces that you're talking about so is is it that we do need the legislation or are can you all are already. You do what's necessary without us passin legislative all give my perspective and then handed over to Mister Jones you know I think you've always got to balance the amount of information you collect with the burden that it puts on people I think that the conversation we need to have his or their policy relevant questions that we need to know the answers to specifically around percent employment get more industry specific information but of course that's got to be weighed against the burden that we put on people I think it's definitely worth the conversation should we enhance the workforce information that we collect this is coming for me as a data geek who would always want more. A I was thinking the same thing and and that an analyst is always going to say more data but I think the concerns of the additional work and the additional burden on on the floors especially small employers is something that has to be considered from the point of the training programs that I work we also have data points that we could add to our case management systems for example whenever someone falls for unemployment they automatically register in the system that I use that are program to use to help those individuals look for jobs so they are automatically posted in that system with the temporary short file that they go in a complete we could we could add what was your previous occupation on the front end of that process and might be able to couple it with this state one of the things that we haven't mentioned is there is the possibility that programs like mine or even training programs could run a specific query. Against the database and those aggregation rules would still apply coming back so we would still be compliant with or you I data protection laws and and things like that so long as we're applying those aggregation rules correctly so it kind of opens the door to being able to do something like that if you can bring that occupation data to the table. Okay so I'll send say because if if we're we're trying to look at this legislation because it I can remember trying to pass that peace and it was a lot of people they they didn't understand exactly where you all were coming from and collecting in they did think it was going to be a a very burden on the smaller businesses and some if you all can have that conversation actually you know this is a good place to have the conversation but in the public health and labor is where you really need to have that conversation so people can understand. They can understand why you would like to collect the data so that that's just this is one point that I wanted to make now moving in moving on with kind of the the work force training programs I mean with a lot of people being out of work in the work force training. It trying to align things I guess with Harry and different places like that but I'm more focused on on what we have going right now which is and and since Arkansas we have one and was signed we have CZ on how we trying to align. I mean is this problem about fifteen hundred to two thousand jobs what are we doing to out to tell line I guess get training get people trying to retrain in those areas so that we can get those jobs you know people into those jobs as soon as the plants open. I can I can give you of a simple overview of that on more on the administrative side but I work closely with our with the field with operations. Our role with the specific federal programs is really the link between we we provide data and support and and try to support efforts like this where we're analyzing these bigger pictures but we have of specific procedures for how we ensure that we are bringing to the table whatever's native. So in those examples where you have six huge hiring events what we do one of the things that we try to do is really connect the existing work force with the with the needs of the employer I think doctor Smith and I've partnered whenever it's a similar example is a new employer coming on and what we might look at there is what type of dislocated worker activity of we had in that area shows that gap between the skills that already exist and the need that the employer might have. So I think doctor Smith's presentation was kind of alluding to that we are we've we've tried to figure out what the gap is first and then bring to the table what we have available that can help for example the C. R. C. program is one of the offerings that we have so in that situation we just kind of focus on the services we do provide but for the remainder of the when we're talking about funding training programs our programs really don't try to shape those that we try to inform those we try to help connect the employers and the training providers together and then we also use the eligible training provider list as a way to control what we fund under the program it's typically not for setting up new programs it's for making sure people are feeling those pipelines that we've already demonstrated a need for so what have we analyze the gaps that we we have in the sense are concerned area for those for those specific jobs that I couldn't say I don't know if the Smith is we we did that when the season the recruitment was under way so I got a request at that point with the specific list of occupations that they were looking for so I wanted to analytics and then pulled estimates of the number of people who were working in those fields already and so then you can look for in a are you stepping into a liquid labor market where your you only need to recruit one percent of the people there doing that job or is it going to be fifty percent of the people who were doing that job so this is likely to create a bottleneck and then if so we can look at a little bit more into detail about a K. what's the nature of this occupation or the experience requirements for the typical credentials the might be required are the training program so that already there and then we could potentially identified gap and and I you know I can imagine a situation where we might end of actually reaching out to. to higher ed institutions and saying. We're trying to recruit this company or maybe we just successfully recruited this company we're expecting a lot of demand for these particular occupations so might be a good time to to stand this up the end of the that probably happens already but I don't think I'm in the loop with that state I was pulled into the recruitment stage but but you know how effectively it works I'm not sure that I mean we were I did a work personnel suffer gunsmithing program from by Black River technical college or shortly after CZ so I knew that news of and so I could link the two but I I wasn't part of the process by which CZ found out by which Black River technical college decided to introduce gunsmithing as a result of CZ I don't know I don't know if they had that plan already I I wasn't part of that part of the conversation but but certainly tumor analytics would be a very valuable tool that we could use to shed light on whether new jobs announcements are going to create particular types of skills gaps are not. I I just add to that so you know we provided this economic security report as an example you're highlighting another example where we need a greater capacity to bring data to bear to inform what we're doing at the state level the chief data officers office is going to try to enhance our ability to link date up and use it for this purpose but also doctor Smith all highlights in his presentation and now that we just to have limited resources to do the types of analysis that we would like to do and we are not as good at getting relevant high priority policy questions out of the various areas of our state as we should be those are two areas where I'm gonna work pretty diligently to try to build that capacity and link up and have more conversations where we can get those relevant questions so the working on something that is high value at you talked earlier about making the case for the data that you collect I think that is a great point and is really important that this is not just data for data sake this is data to inform policy and if it's going to inform policy the questions we ask the stuff that we do have to be policy relevant and as senator English distrust and and numerous conversations has to be provided to the appropriate audience in a way where it's actionable and so we're gonna try to improve that over time as well but would love to you know continue to work with you to highlight those areas and and gaps we can build more capacity I think that's the the whole idea of of this subcommittee is to begin to have these conversations so that we can begin to look out what are the what is that information we need how could it be helpful and to us in making policy decisions because we met a lot of decisions here Boyd I'm not sure we all their based on anything it's just that is what it is so thank you for that question let's see of Senator hammer. Thank you Mr chair throughout the conversation I've heard of it impressed upon me anyway based on the interpretation I heard you say that you don't have enough manpower to do the job for you in my correct in the interpretation or not. yeah at more more exactly we have the manpower but there's a lot of other tasks so we don't have enough sort of freemen power To to focus on it. Don't have a dedicated yes to this. That's right what we need the dedicated to this kind of these kinds of projects that's right everybody that is working on this effort nations and his staff included CDOs office everybody has multiple hats they're wearing and multiple responsibilities outside of doing this type of analysis linking these type of data having conversations like this and and you know those other task take at least fifty percent of everybody's time so I think it's correct to say that we don't have the capacity manpower capacity right now to do this really really well. Go ahead thank you that's what I'm into one thing I'm interested in I'd like you to if with the chairs permission I'd like you to put together what you think it would take in order to give this effort the attention it needs in the way of manpower because we're come up on a general session for one thing and is the chair said no there's of echoed you know we want good data to make our decisions on to make sure we're going in the right directions and perhaps based on the information bring we might be able to you know do some money shifting within the budget to cover the cost of it if we can identify savings within certain pocket so are these like to hear because evidently got something in mind could oneill said that you may request a higher up but it hasn't gone anywhere so I'd like to I'd like for you to bring back a recommendation of what you think it would take in order to give it the attention it needs with chairs permission tell the guy quite said that okay with you may have alluded. Would be what we heard okay Is this. In your report on page. Was it you have a copy of this ten. It was up on the board that that one right there. Is that a is that a list of things that you feel need to be added to the scope of work as outlined in the legislation that is currently not being able to be done is that the comprehensive list of that I don't I wouldn't say that is a comprehensive list this is a list of ideas the doctor Smith came up with to kinda help stimulate our thinking today we would welcome the opportunity to have a conversation about what the list would look like what enhancements questions we would ask in the near term to make the report even better so happy to have that conversation but I don't at I wouldn't say that this is a comprehensive list and I think it with that conversation would have to involve higher read DWS and and policy makers well but we would be happy to facilitate that and the other one of the just quick point it's not just a matter of staff resources often as as important a constraint is is data sharing agreements so most of what's on the lower part of the list we couldn't do now even if I had you know ten economists working for me because I wouldn't have access to the data that we would need so those it is just something to keep in mind okay well I think in what I'm asking you to prepare to bring would include a list of what your obstacles are that are prohibiting you so we could you know begin to systematically eliminate those obstacles because if you can't get beyond the obstacle we can't get what we need and would really like to know who it is a stone up the firewall to Freddie and then find out why they're putting them up front can I add one thing to that I I don't know that it's always about firewalls often it's about priorities so until the state make something a priority it can be hard to move at a data linkage project Ford I use the phrase data for data sake before if there's not a priority if there's not a pressing need if there's not a pressing question the somebody wants the answer to that it can be hard data linkage and data sharing projects can D. B. D. prior. Oversized because state agencies are busy doing what they do they have to serve the citizens of Arkansas and unless there's a prioritization of a data linkage project can be hard to move that to the top of the stack so one of the things that the legislature can be helpful with this helping us identify what those priority should be and then moving those forward with with state agencies in collaboration. Okay and then let's say like to hit on for now is with regards date densely K. we guessed career technical education center get bill and we hired a consultant come in and identify with the businesses what were the top tier and then we went through the process of you know realign the payment of based on tier system. DO you when it comes to the conversation the businesses we get it we hear from small businesses or say you give me one more thing to do I need to be out build my wages or whatever have you have you what have you done to help alleviate any of the concerns that businesses are expressing such as dialoguing with them or having somebody go out and do an assessment with them or are you that far down the line yet. Yeah I think that's a little further down the line I think that there internal the state government there's a desire to have better information it Representative love talked about legislation last session that would enhance the information I think the indication that that in before that there was a push back from industry is an indication that those conversations hadn't happened yet but I think that something that needs to happen a lot of states you know I mentioned other states doing hours collecting hours for their employees but they often don't collect that information from businesses under a certain size and so there are lots of ways to exempt very small businesses from that burden but collect the information from a large enough subset of business is in the state that you have valuable information another way to do that is through sampling so sort of collecting it from everybody do a random sample so there are lots of ways to do that but that's a conversation that I think needs to happen and in the near term if we're gonna try to move for with an answer for mission okay because I would just say just be easier to get them involved in the process so that participate than the past something is going to force him to do it that's going to be resentful and maybe you don't get it done anyway regardless let's shift put released of punitive actions we really don't want to go there so what I'll thing I would if I could at I think if we had demonstrated the value of and our ability to use the date at that might flip the conversations so instead of the small businessman thinking This is gonna be more paperwork for me they might think I don't know what advice to give my kid about where to go to college and I want that information so this is how we get it is that we all organize this but if we had all that information now I don't think we would be able to effectively communicate that infirmity also sitting communicated to the public so that might be why a business would resist rather than welcoming this right you got to make him want to give it to you. Thank you. Okay let's see Representative makes. Thank you madam chair and some of the points Representative hammer that these German just brought up as one of reasons why I've been advocating that we need to create a permanent data and analytics office within state government instead of everybody were multiple hats because you said things get lost in and that's how to how other states have done it question I had actually goes back to what Representative love it asked and in this may be something you all have already considered on the data gathering from the business as we mentioned that we don't want to create an undue burden but we still want to collect the data right now I'm assuming that we do is we ask everybody question a B. and C. have you considered or maybe you're already doing it were you asked some questions a B. and C. you ask another question another business D. E. and a half and then you have overlap between those. So you don't get everybody answering the same but you get enough of a sampling from everybody to. Get to those lark to get to more questions. Verses just ask everybody A. B. and C. that makes sense on asking is that something off and are doing or have done I I don't administer the Ellen my program but they are right across the hall from me so I don't wanna say too much on their behalf but I do know that they are federally contracted in every year they have a very strict set of standards that they have to use and so it's almost you're almost in the situation where some additional funding has to come in and unfortunately we don't have that support the something to really expand that capacity and the like so many programs the funding has been going down so it's been kind of minimalistic they use the surveys that are provided and they they meet the requirements of their contract and that's about what they can do so it comes back to what we've been discussing about funding sometimes we have we have become so dependent on the federal government funding through the department of workforce services but it doesn't meet our needs because typically it it and zero in on a certain group of people but that isn't everybody in this room it's only three or four of you in this room and what we really need is are the resources to be able to look at everybody so you mention the the folks being ready to be able to go to work for the Amazon thing that should include everybody and they should not have had to of I have applied for unemployment insurance at the agency or applied to be a dislocated workers want people just don't do that but we need to be we need to find lots of different people and not just be targeting all of our stuff but that's going to require state resources to be able to do that because of federal resources are so Problematic I mean they're so specific to separate groups of people. A I think of. You have some more well one more if that's okay another thing I've been advocating for is the creation of a master citizen file so that A it makes it easier for citizen interface with state government so Senate having to go to twenty three different state agencies all the informations in one location for the service and on the flip side was what you're trying to do what a master citizen file. Be beneficial to you all and house up. And do you understand what I'm saying by. Okay yeah absolutely so master person index essentially this is a way to resolve identity across multiple data sets in the states so each state department has its own data that A collects on IT service population this would be a way to connect the information on those different service populations so that you could follow people across difference our state services absolutely I mean that type of of connection would really help our ability to answer policy relevant questions across state departments how. Doctor Smith race you know how our people matriculating through our various systems from K. twelve to hire read from K. twelve higher ed to the work force right now we don't know a whole lot about how people are moving to those various systems we don't know kind of what types of people are using other types of state services whether that be welfare whether that be the the juvenile justice system we don't know enough about how people are moving through our systems how well we're serving them what their outcomes are after the fact and that being able to resolve identities across state agencies would allow us to answer more questions more definitively I and it could be done in a secure safe way where privacy was also protected. I was just going to add that I will I would assume I wouldn't directly access someone's information the same way that the citizen would there be all sorts of security constraints and challenges to making it available to a citizen which are different from those to make it available to a state government official but all the effort of managing the data so that all the systems talk to each other would make it much easier to build the kind of longitudinal system where we could also see the whole picture and I wouldn't want to see it for an individual citizen I want to see it in an anonymized format so they don't run that risk but you could still do all the statistical analysis and be very much facility. Senate. Representative Lowery. Thank you in this questions probably would be better answered by someone from higher ed but I understand that they're not here today but you referenced doctor Smith to write you reference that you you would preferred that the information that you gather through this report that it be more than just advisory to higher ed we have already had conversations on a on a totally separate issue related to higher ed some of the hearings involving Henderson state for instance in their. Fiscal accounting. So there's a number of us already looking at legislation that would be more than just advisory to universities so while we're doing that this might be one of those areas that we would also want to press into that the university's actually respond to this information of it one whether they're going to start a new academic program whether they're going to continue an academic program based on you know insufficient information here what would you say are. Is the threshold on percentage of of graduates who do get employed in their field we're you we really of a university should start looking at whether that is really a adequate program so this is a really good it really interesting question and Luke walked back to the the the statement I sort of threw in there which is that there have been a couple cases where I wish to the this is advisory we're more than advisory because I felt like okay I this time I really got a clear picture and this time I'm pretty sure this is a bad idea and they should really walk this back and I think certain personnel and I read with agree on those particular cases but as a general policy I don't think they should and I think it would take a lot of work to get this up to the point where it would be advisable to make it binding because there's just a lot of stuff that we can't see and you mention specifically what's the threshold of of the of employment what we can't see other state employment. So if you have an online master's degree. That has an international audience that may be a fantastic program the doesn't get almost anybody employed in Arkansas but they're doing great. But it's just because it's an international program we can't see their their wages and so if you define some metric like you have to get at least ten percent of your graduates wage and salary employed in Arkansas we're gonna shut you down well that program might get shut down when they should be so that that's what I think we we need to make the quality of the analytics that we can produce better we need the the process we need more back comes forth more feedback more sort of consultation before I think we can rise to the level where that would be binding but at some point it does seem desirable because we it would be great if we had that in there too because in some ways that's when it really so anyway with the it's it appears to me then that you have a which comes first the chicken or the egg argument do we bake the information more accurate before we require that it be mandated or do we mandated. Rather than just being advisory and then add the resources to make sure the information is is fully declared ever yard basically giving us an accurate picture I mean. Well you can. At the information before making it mandatory I don't think it not being mandatory is a barrier to doing the improvements that you need to do in order to get to the point and I guess the question the and it goes back to senator hammer's question of asking help. Many how much more additional staff which you need or resources to make sure the information is completely accurate. That's fine we could invest in that but if it is still going to be advisory to higher ed I don't know that we wanted to do to make the the investment yep eight point and you know one of the issues I'm looking at here. Skews me. We your higher it higher it is constantly or or at least periodically looking at the the outcomes based formula the metrics. And this information I would think would be well for instance. There have been adjustments made in removing some of the metrics tied to some certificates that really don't have very high unemployment areas so so that should those universities be getting credit for outcomes based funding because they're getting and AT A metrics boost for certificate whether students are not getting hired that's why I think that the question of what the threshold is is so necessary I mean if it's only if only thirty percent in a particular certificate are actually getting hired then is that a certificate that should be getting an extra metrics boost as it relates to outcomes based funding yes very good question and I think the player it actually says pose completion metrics are not included because of a lack of adequate data but they will be included when available so they already have a plan for what if we can get this good enough that they're ready to use it to decide which programs to get funded you you would put it in the funding formula so yeah. The the last question I have is it looking at these categories are percent employed and then it looks percent full time and I'm just just going to draw one line that says percent employed seventy four percent. Percent full time fifty percent is that saying fifty percent of those seventy four percent or full time or of the seventy four percent of the what what what's the difference in those two callers right so there there's some nuances related to continuing education have those people classified that to simplify a little bit then if you have a hundred percent of graduates than seventy four percent to be the ones that are in any kind of wage and salary earnings in Arkansas and then the fifty percent would be all of that original one hundred percent okay how many of them are meeting the full time equivalent criterion which is new wants to because he can't see hours that's not in the data so what we have to do is we have to say okay well if they are working full time then they'd at least minimum wage times number of hours and we'd see it in each of the four quarters and so we do that test but some of them may not be working full time maybe working earning a little bit more at an hourly rate but working a part time and and still meeting that test so we don't actually see that and that's one of these new once is that are very confusing institutions and to the public and that in my narratives I'm constantly having to work around to try to help people interpret this state accurately okay I saw one of the listings that and I lost my page but there was one that said thirty thirty three percent of the graduates are employed thirty three percent are full time so that means thirty three percent of all the graduates any employment they have is full time is that correct basically yes yeah okay Senator I was going to this is Chris downs and one of the things that we had talked about in the previous committee meeting was you know the value of the data. it and it does have limitations sometimes what it's pointing you towards is what you need to look at qualitatively so even if you had a threshold you might don't you might not draw a hardline but you say this is the point where it where we do need to take a deeper dive do more surveys it helps to focus your resources so even with the shortcomings of any data set there there may still be value and in improving a with the one the one hardline on the date it would be the number of graduates correct over that to your. So for instance if you've got a program that only graduated fifteen students in the sixteen seventeen that is a hard that's a hard number yep okay the number that may not be so hard is the percentage that are employed because you're not able to look at outside of the state it's a hard number if you know how to interpret it right. Okay has it it has a definite objective meeting and it's based in fact but that meaning is kind of counter intuitive because you have to put all this fine print around two we can't see I think kind of the broader point here is it using workforce outcomes or for accountability for higher ed it is a good idea and having that conversation is a good idea we'd like to see the data enhanced more that's gonna take conversations another thing is currently evaluation of higher ed programs happens at the back in it's hard for higher ed institutions get ahead of that because they don't necessarily have the ability to dig into this information in a user friendly format so working with fire red to better understand the labor market conditions so that they can plan which programs they want to stand up with programs they want to phase out is another area where this could be hugely informative to state policy with that gets us back to you again to the issue that this information is just advisory diarrhea and we've run into this there's a constitutional interpretation that higher ed cannot be told they have a vested interest in some decision making I know that there's been at least one case where the university of central Arkansas butted heads against the higher it coordinating board over the coordinating board not wanting to approve a new academic program and you see a to the court because they said that that is part of their vested interest so that's why I you know I ask the question some of us are willing to start looking at this. Very hard line where it's like if we're going to have a coordinating board we want them to have some teeth we want them to have some power especially if they have strong data showing that there are some programs that may be should be eliminated at the level of higher at so thank you very much for for your answers. Okay let's see Representative Ladyman. Good conversation. Thank you madam chair yeah this is a very interesting discussion and I I have the worked in fields were were we've opened factories and tried to get labor and also when I graduate engineering school had to leave the state because it wasn't any jobs and and I I've tried to work so that you know our kids and our grandkids will have to do that they can leave the say they want to but they should have that option to stay have a good paying job and it's kind of the chicken and the egg because you know I I worked with people to this bill factories and open up factories and you go there you course the labor has to be there or you won't go there. Right and then we have the the brain drain of people graduating from college in the engineering accounting or management or whatever and they leave the state because there are no jobs. So I guess what what I'm trying to say is I think it's a great thing to collect this data and be able to share it this kind of goes back to what represented Meeks was saying while ago. Okay if you ask in you in you get a number on how many people leave their hometowns or leave the state and say they've got higher is degrees. How do they know how do they get back you know if you're working in Chicago where it wherever and you want to come back to Arkansas but how do you hi how are they going to access that data how's that how's that going to help collecting the data is great but someone mentioned the quality of the data and then also the availability of that data I mean if you collected and it's not good or is not available then you're wasting your time and effort so can you kind of talk about that I mean how can we make that they they're available to those folks who are out of state might wanna come back or the those people who are looking to bring businesses here the Amazon At fulfillment center that was talked about is great but what we need in Arkansas is more corporate headquarters and and I know small business is important but we need a large companies to bring their headquarters here and for them to do that they've got to have good dependable data and they've got to have available labor so can you kind of talk about that a little bit. So that's a great question and I think it really highlight something I've been stressing both in remarks and any answers to questions it you want to answer questions and collect data against the value proposition there has to be some reason for doing it that actually adds to the quality of citizens lives to the economy of the state of Arkansas now your particular question how do we get it to the right people how do we convince corporations to to locator headquarters here I don't know the date is going to ever be determinative in that I do know that there's a lot of room to improve state services with better information that facilitates a deeper discussion of how we can improve over time so for me this is more about continuous improvement and using information better to make our services better to inform decision making so that we get better over time it's not gonna be an overnight thing it it's it's going to be more of a discussion about it what we put more emphasis on the chicken or the egg in a lot of the situations right but the hope is that better information deeper conversations around this helps us to get to a better solution for the state of Arkansas my office the CEO's office is here to facilitate that to have those conversations to service the questions like you are asking and figure out which ones we want to prioritize which ones have the biggest value add and then go make the data necessary to answer those questions happen so that's that's what we're here for and I'd love to continue that conversation about what are the high priority high value at areas where we should do more work. The case of the CZ recruitment I think is an instance of what you're saying where we use data to help a business record I I I think I heard I heard that that was a factor like part of the decision was that they they got good data on of the work force that would be available here so But we didn't use any state data for that it wasn't the data that we're. Managing within state government that was from tumor analytics so an external provider and as far as somebody coming back into the state I think it's more likely to go to private data sources Potentially we could stand up something that's under the auspices of state government that is in good as good as indeed monster you know all the existing job search engines that are out there or the compliments them in some way that that makes a difference but that that's a pretty heavy lift and if we're using state data per se then we have an advantage over any of the private providers because we can see things that they don't but it would still be pretty difficult I think to the get to the point where if somebody starts their job search by looking at it Arkansas state government side instead of in recruiting sites are already there. Where you know I mean somehow we have to find out what the users need and I know I know we try to do that on the list for difficult to do but you know a lot of industries will have their own training program I mean I taught in a you know industrial training program because it was not available in the state in the industry came here anyway so how do you and I understand it's a difficult job for higher it and workers you know workforce services to know. What you need to train when you don't know. What the industry is or what the businesses and and and that's very difficult to do and that's been the discussion here but if you can somehow get input from these industries and I know you're trying to do that with the surveys but speaking as someone is filled out the survey he's. It's like you said it's a secondary thing you know you laid on your desk and you may get around to it you may not and you may have five or ten minutes fill and also the date is not really good for what you're looking for again I think represented Meeks made a good point when he said if you're sampling in you got twelve questions you know sent three questions to these ten industries are these businesses and three more questions to another ten percent and that way you're not putting a burden on those industries yeah I think that's something that really ought to be looked at. Thank you. Thank you Mr chair whenever you go to put together what you think is going to be adequate manpower nor do this and do this right to one thing I just like to give a word of caution about is on the security side of things because there's a level of distrust out there being with unemployment fraud that's going on and employers are having to deal with that you get a thousand contact tracers are out there that are you know seeking together personal information all things are to go on with that I would just really like you to drill down on what you're going to do as far security measures because people feel comfortable giving the information does matter what we do they're not going to give it and I think right to be real convincing that we're not going to access all this information on a only to have it used for other purposes until intentionally or unintentionally some just like throw that out that when you develop that you throw that in the mix of things for manpower for the project thank you. Thank you madam chair My question kind of keys in on Senator hammer's last point there what is your plan as far as protecting personal information data is there. Is all this personally identifiable information going to be shared across all the entities. Is that you need qualifier so that nobody can be personally identified how do you manage that to make sure that. There is no breach that there never can be a breach and even more importantly that Big Brother doesn't start coming down on the average citizen. That's a great question and happy to dig deeper into that of course with DIS staff should you want to go deeper my high level answer is the DIS has a great security plan has developed state of the art data warehouse in terms of of identified information being shared across the answer to that is no that information that is shared it will either be de identified and a war will be aggregated in such a way where individuals cannot be identified so this is simply for research purposes a lot of the questions we're talking about today don't require any identified information they require us to be able to link people across different systems but once that link it occurs at the information be completely de identified and anything that is shared to the folks like doctor Smith so internal data users OR the general public through PDF for another user facial be aggregated with cell sized suppression enforced strictly so that it's impossible to identify any individual. One instance of this we got the U. I. wage data under data sharing agreement workforce services about three years ago for research purposes and one of the a charge that you saw in this presentation was generated from that you a wage data but we did not see any SSNs the social security numbers we didn't see any birth to dates of birth we saw the year of birth so that we could use of our analytics but that so sufficiently imprecise we did with it was. Consider that we couldn't identify any individuals based on just the year of birth we saw the wage but the wage was rounded to three significant digits so if somehow I could trace down that somebody nineteen thousand five hundred and sixty one dollars and forty seven cents and then link that per I mean this is almost a fantastic's in our but just to preach you know preclude everything then we would have rounded that up to eighteen thousand six hundred. so that then there'd be a large number of people who probably would have made would have made that amount so there were a bunch of things that were done we saw the industry but only to a certain level of detail and it's a lot of things are done so that we had to a data set that was analytically useful but that we couldn't personally identify anyone but we didn't just trust to that we also had every staffer who who touched that data including the I. T. guys but including staff we didn't know anything about the statistical software so they could have done anything but just to cover all our bases they all had to sign a little agreement saying that they wouldn't use that data to personally identify anyone so there's both the trust aspect and then this technical aspect of just trying to make it in feasible thank you. I can't tell you how much I appreciate you all being here anybody else have any questions at all. Good conversation and it's in the whole idea is we've got this information out here how do we work together to make it make it usable to this many and this is just the first of the number of conversations we will have but I think as people begin to think about it more more questions will come into their mind and as we said we're we're moving into a general session in a few months and will hope to have some recommendations here by that time but thank you very much all of you for being here this is not the last meeting thank you really appreciate conversation thank you doctor Porter. The would just identify yourselves and then you'll be recognized. Thank you madam chair my name is doctor also importer with the Arkansas department of health and the deputy chief science officer. Mac. Use me make your heart health. So I'm I I think obviously code would is the number one conversation my husband asked me every morning when he comes back from this five mile walk so it was in the paper I set the virus the virus the virus and in any other conversation you want to have this just that's all it is it's all about that but I've been impressed with the speaking of all this data we're trying to collect what you all have done as far as collecting internally externally and how you're sharing it and so I'd really kind of like you to talk a little bit about what you all of been doing how you're sharing it where you're getting it um that kind of thing yes absolutely and and thank you madam chair for the opportunity to speak to the subcommittee in to speak on that point. like to of share with the committee of the subcommittee regarding some of the surveillance efforts that have taken place since we've identified our first Covin nineteen case and says you know of our first case was identified on March eleventh. in that case was identified in Jefferson County and of through a case investigations in contact tracing were able to identify the many other clusters of throughout the state of currently of just to give you all of the latest update in terms of what we have and about latest numbers we have thirty three thousand two hundred and twenty eight total cases in the state of which seven thousand nineteen are actors of yesterday we added six hundred and ninety five new cases there were four hundred and thirty five individuals who are currently admitted into the hospital and unfortunately three hundred and fifty two deaths associated with Colbert nineteen so regarding some of the data that we provide as an agency you all are pretty familiar with some of the daily press briefings that the governor and secretary Smith would hold each day. And our team at the department of health to put together those data reports in graphs and tables that the governor would use to provide of the public with the latest information additionally the we have a dashboard that is available on the department of health website that will identify a county level information regarding number of active cases number of tests that were in ministered in a host of other information that's available of to the to the general public in then lastly we provide many and hawk reports we've received several requests from members within this committee of from mayors other state agencies who are interested in knowing about cold it related cases in their jurisdictions we've you'll through this pandemic you know it has generated the opportunity for us through the public health emergency declaration that was that the governor announced allowed us to collaborate with many public and private partners. And you know of a few of which are university of Arkansas for medical sciences you a miss eight time Arkansas Senate for health improvement and other private entities that helped us with our data analytics in it is been extremely beneficial to have those partnerships and collaborations with these with these entities you know we have a team of about twenty epidemiologists and several other nurses staff members who are helping us with this pandemic and so to say that our resources are pretty stretched would be an understatement but you know we've been able to lean quite heavily on the external partners so that we could you know improve in and Sir provide many analytics a reports that you know we've been pretty Stritch the into to accomplish so with that I'll I'll I'll poles in you know I just want to give everyone a very brief update of some of our surveillance efforts and then also More than happy to speak on any of other news which is the governor's technology advisory board of should the committee be interested in hearing about that. Hi seven I I guess one of the things that is just impressed me so much and you you kind of alluded to it there is is how quickly you were able to I don't know whether it signed agreements or whatever with people to to so that you can share the data sometimes that's on one of our problems is getting people just to talk to each other and sign these but you all of manage to do that not just in state resources but I also stayed out of the state so the public can be where the information is available across across outside entities so I think Representative Lowery has a question but that that's kind of I think one of the things we're trying to figure out is how do we get people to move faster yeah how do we get people to understand that we need this information it's not my information it's everybody's informational how do we get people to quickly see the the need for it at. Fully is stuff together so yes absolutely and in a I could speak a little bit more to that is Hey you know and that's been one of the things that have been extremely beneficial to this pandemic is that we were able to quickly stand up a lot of these data use agreements that would normally take weeks if not months to get signed and everyone to review and get both parties to agree to the terms and you know we were able to get our data use agreement with you a miss done in in one day and I mean you know will that's lightens B. compared to what we were used to in the past and they have helped us out immensely and so you know one of the things that we also. Able to stand up or used to our advantage we had an existing online data request portal of through the department of health where researchers can go in and request data they can request of de identified datis is for research purposes we they can also request a specific reports and and other of you know bits of information it's related to Covin nineteen and we have been able to expedite the process of getting those reviewed and getting those data sets out to those in the interested parties. Thank you Mr chairman of doctor Porter we having constituents we get calls we get emails will get messages. it you know I know we want we were wanting to make sure that the data of the analytics. starts with good information I mean I guess there's and I don't know if it's used anymore but I know that there used to be a phrase garbage in garbage out that if the information going in is not accurate then the analytics the garbage out you're not gonna get anything and we're and we're getting anecdotal contacts I received and message from a constituent. Said a friend of theirs it was hired to do contact tracing. They contacted intended contacted the husband and wife said you know we need to get your information of who you've been in contact with because we've been told that you know the information we have is that you tested positive for covered nineteen and this this couple seven we have not been tested. There been other situations were of one where someone was. Killed in a motorcycle accident and yet the death certificate later said that they died from covered related illness. You can understand why there's a lot of skepticism among our constituents especially when it comes to things like a mask mandate of how accurate are we're you know the no one is saying that this is a hoax but there is concern about the lack of accuracy in some of the reporting what is gathering this information and what can be done to make sure that it is. Real time accurate it Representative Lowery you you've of bring a very interesting point and you know one of the things that you know in terms of the garbage in garbage out that that free still applies in and I think especially now dealing with the cold in nineteen pending make and. One of the challenges that we have been dealing with in terms of contact tracing and case investigation is the accuracy of information that we're getting from our potential cases so for instance if someone called me and say you know doctor Porter we recognize that you may have been in contact with someone who is positive you know there's nothing that states that I have to one give accurate information to the context racers in case investigators right and and we have to deal with that quite a bit with individuals not providing us with factual information so you have situations where phone numbers are provided and it's not of it's not the actor is not the correct person right and so the end up getting phone calls to people who have not been in contact with anyone regarding Open nineteen positive person or they have not been tested fort Meade someone just give a random phone number in in that is something that you know we face frequently and you know we we try very hard to to work through those issues but you know is that something that that is a challenge will it in that was my first question was well maybe this couple was contacted because someone it said they were covered nineteen positive they've been in touch with this couple. And and the person says to me and again by the time I'm getting it it's third hand. But the the problem that is in this particular situation that is inhibiting our ability to get accurate information is that the person who's been hired to do the contact tracing has said they can't come forward because they've been told that they would lose their job. If they reported this first hand to a legislator or to someone the governor's staff for department of health yes Sir so we're you know we don't know I don't know how to deal with that when we when we're getting some of these wild stories about people being concerned that you know I I think Senator Clark is been dealing with the law getting a lot of information and his follow up was that once he started tracking information down from third hand to second hand to first day and found out that it was absolutely you know not true yeah but that's a lot of work for us to do to to try and find out whether the information is accurate or not so anything the jock and do not and I think we've probably had less trouble with this in Arkansas that it that have been going on in other states but anything anything that the department can do to to help us have more confidence in the the information that's being communicated yes absolutely yeah we will explore and such technologies okay thank you. Okay Senator hammer. Thank you Mr chair just a quick technical question on the way in which the information is reported the number of active cases those include the hospitalizations in that number is that correct that is correct yes Sir okay what do you do is far as breaking down the active cases because one thing summit said to me was will ID no I was you know positive until they had a sore throat that's all they ever had through the whole thing was sore throat and so how do you dissect the active cases to where. Not so restrictive yes so so what what we use we use the CDC's criteria for defining whether or not a person is active Kate is an active case and that's within ten days of symptom on sit of two you know that the current date from that you know we're you know the ranges of symptoms associated with active cases going to vary widely of from you know sort of a symptomatic too sore throat to difficulty breathing and it's in it is difficult to say you know to todos six that even further but we can you know the identified individuals who are active in currently in the hospital of and so. Yes at. We try not to die sick to much into the active cases because you know that you're active your sitting of ours and and those individuals who should be set up isolating for the duration until they become what we define as recovered and so what information is available we we don't report on that because of the you know how these symptoms can can widely range okay and so somebody gets the call that they've been in the chain of somebody that's positive like I mean I get it you know I I get it tested I'm positive. The contact tracer calls me and here's my long list of everybody that I've been in touch with yes and then the process begins a going downstream trying to find everybody every find so you go to a third person down and the third person says well here's my long list the contact tracer then takes off down that stream and goes after all those people right yes Sir okay so theoretically you could in likelihood tests the entire state of pop population of Arkansas if the right people fall of right in the right places that a conceivable idea or not. Yes is somewhat conceivable but you know the thing is is that we go to the third you know to that third line of of contacts and you know anything beyond that you know we don't necessarily follow because there are criteria that needs to be met four one two be what we would consider high risk there's the duration in which that individual needs to be in in contact with that positive case and you know research has shown that once you get past that third level of contact you know the the risk is is relatively low all and so but I think you speak to something is very important that you know when individuals are contacted for contact tracing that you know the information that they provide to the contact traces this is accurate as possible in as complete as possible otherwise you know it could really reduce our efforts in in halting any of transmission of the virus okay a doctor when when somebody's identified as having tested positive yes that result is sent to the health department correct and then doctor doing patients out to that person pretty strongly written letter saying you better keep self the house for fourteen days yes Sir at what point does the clock start on the fourteen days is that the point of contact they had with the person or is it from the time that they are notified officially by letter is the cut is the point of contact from that person okay and do you separate that who is highly contagious from who is not contagious or if they just test positive in any form or fashion they're getting that letter yes Sir if they test positive you know because. What this what researchers shown is that a symptomatic individuals can transmit the virus just just as efficiently as those who are who are caring the virus and so that something you know when we when we get into a symptomatic versus symptomatic and in the level of sent the the symptoms then I think you know it it creates the of a narrative this very confusing to the public to fall and so that's what we say if your symptoms or if you test positive for corona virus and you come in contact with someone you know that time starts from from the point of contact okay so I could of or even home five days a and I've already gotten five of my fourteen days I can take off the calendar that just leaves me the balance of the time for service up yes Sir so if master supposed to be so effective that were mandating them why can't we let these people leave their house if they promise to wear a mask because are probably going to be as honorable to the word that they're gonna wear a mask when they're on public as they are that they're actually going to stay home unless you're park somebody outside the door and watch. None and that's the that's an excellent question and you know I think that the the mass mandate is something that you know the decision to mandate masks right were were based on based on the data that's available to show that you know there's a five fold reduction in the risk of transmitting the virus if you wear a mask versus not wearing a mask and you know the bill research that's out there regarding you know the efficiency of mass is pretty pretty stroll and it and so. You know taking someone's word I think you just have to get the error on our err on the side of caution and just say stay in the house to greatly reduce the risk of transmission of the virus verses you know just kind of been out and able to mingle with the public and going to public pace space is no one that you are sitting the virus and at a much greater risk to transmit the virus to others. Very district but thank you I guess I got another question major but I go to barbecue let's get some. Thank you okay let's see senator Bledsoe. Thank you madam chairman hello doctor Porter school. Get C. as well mail a I have a question about collection of the data when it comes to saying this person that would code nineteen. And the when you have patients with co morbidities let's say of you know they had cancer maybe even down be this maybe then they. Have voting ammonia and and then they get that they contract because with nineteen. What who is to say they died from code nineteen verses. Of just from you know all these other things this was the kind of that thing that the last draws so to speak but it just seems as if when you read the background of some of the people with cove in nineteen they have all these you know of come abilities that you think any one of them could have. You know been of the Senate so bad that they would have with two or three of them would have done just by getting maybe even among so tell me how they discern this patient died with code nineteen. When they have all these other. Illnesses yes ma'am at that's an excellent question when we get quite often you know just even from the general public but the thing that. We you know we we rely very heavily on the research and and the studies that have been placed out then what's what's been shown is that Kobe nineteen exacerbates a lot of these pre existing conditions diabetes of pneumonia in a way that where recovery would normally occur in the absence of cold in nineteen we don't see that in the presence of Kobe nineteen to that extent and while Covin nineteen may be may not be the of the primary cause of death it is listed as a contributing factor that resulted in that in that person's demise especially when we look at those types of chronic illnesses such as diabetes hypertension in another state that we see very frequently in our In cases where people have died from cold it. So. But when we get the the data it's reported to. We don't know about the cause of it I mean we don't know about the come a bit it takes the public that sent and so. You know is this like everyone that attack Covin nineteen these are the people who've done but they don't have the background they don't have the history the health history to say that was a contributing factor. I'm I'm sorry are you are you referring to individuals who may not have any comorbidities or those who those who do it's not you know you're not separating them out and saying you know the contributing factor. Wasn't because the nineteen but it it ended up being that last straw that that made them in a sitcom where is they put may would have lived I mean have you do it in other words how can I believe that all of these people died with with Copa nineteen for it here these other things are contributing to that death as well and and that's something that you know it is very it's it's very difficult to say or write in terms that Covin nineteen calls this person's death and and and again this is what we have to really lead lean on on the research that has been done that have shown that you know Kobe nineteen in the presence of diabetes in the presence of pneumonia in the presence of asthma and all these other co morbidities of these comorbidities or information that we collect as a part of our case investigation and you know. We you know we we may not say cove it actually cost it but it certainly contributed to that person's demise and so it's. Is it is it is difficult in the army and that's exactly you know the point your make and You know and and that's something that that is difficult to say that cold it. Did you know was the the final straw but again to me that's something that we have to leave very heavily on the research that has been done with that make sense yes I just a I just hear all these deaths and I'm just you know like you've heard were skeptical because of things that have happened in the past absolutely and I and I will say that even when we look at the age distribution or you know individuals who may be like in a nursing home me we we know that these are these are risk factors so you know. Individuals who died in a nursing home who tested positive for cold four cove it I mean the it's it's a so great proportion of of total debts that we have I want to say almost a third of debts that we have had so far were nursing home residents and and and of course I mean you know those individuals are going to have a lot of co morbidities and and other things and you know. Unfortunately you know when they contracted cove it. You know it it's certainly Contributed to their to the ultimate demise all right with thank you very much thank you. Representative Ladyman. Thank you madam chair of well my questions along the same lines of the questions you had before maybe they've been answered here but I guess. My question is how do you collect but what what do you get this dated as it you got all these hospital these testing points that are accumulating this data throughout the state. This all of that come in the U. does that go to the CDC and you get it back or how. Where is that they the collected from so I can walk to the point of You know from the very beginning all the way from when the person may be hospitalized to to death that that's okay so when we get a you know a positive test they come into the coming from the lab or may come in from the positions office and you'll bill reported to us at the department of health as a reportable condition at that point we generate what's called a recap of record in it recap record follows that individuals for the whole duration that they remain active or hospitalized or to the point that the data and we have nurses that reach out through case investigation contact tracers they reach out to the positive case and to you know to identified is that the individual in hospital would symptoms are they having and ultimately when they can Determine a person is recovered and you know that that information all comes into the health department in a centralized database in the end that information is sent to the to the CDC of. That regularly and and so you know it it doesn't come from the CDC does it actually he comes to us first in a centralized database in the end we transmit that data over to the center for disease control. So the numbers that are sure the Daily News conference are from. Your department yes some CDC correct that's correct yes Sir okay of another question. Who determines the because of the death or whether it's not cause of death but whether it's Kobe case I mean who makes that determination I know you get the data yes Sir but who who's determining that you are you talking about in terms of debts or yes yes Sir okay so then information is generally determined by you know the majority of the cases that you know within a hospital in so we rely on our you know medical professionals to so that would be the attending position us to yes Sir so and again this goes back to people that have other conditions so the person that makes that decision is the doctor yes Sir or it could be a corner I suppose yes right yes Sir was come from those two cases of again on the quality of the information you know and I know there's a news article out on whether it's true or not but that three hundred labs in Florida reported one hundred percent positive on every sample they got which seems kind of unusual to me but I mean the you all the on the testing the you just collect that data I mean you have no way of knowing. Whether it's good quality data ACT creator or what is the percent of accuracy can you give me some information on that well I will give you Some information regarding of if we if if we see on usually how positivity rates coming out of a single institution or single lab then information is you know. It may require subsequent testing to verify those positive cases I mean I think the accuracy of the data specially in these terms is is is very critical and so when we see the unusual or abnormalities in the data you know we do follow up with them in the former free P. testing in the form of you know follow up through case case investigations a more intense version of case investigations so that we can you know really truly get at the root issue of of what's going on two eight so if you see if you think there might be a problem you're you're looking into that yes Sir and that could be you know re agent the lamp or somebody new not knowing the process on absolutely there could be reasons for that but when you see a number like three hundred labs I mean that's I don't with that articles true or not but that gets your attention yes that will certainly get are attention one more question sure what is the purpose or the benefit or of every day in the news conference saying how many cases we've had since day one I mean what benefit is and the reason I asked that question you know I like represent large that we get calls and emails and I had a lady called me and said well Hey you know there was thirty thousand cases yes and she's scared that okay because that's the first number that comes out there and people people are not analytical not all people are analytical they see these charge they see these numbers and they get confused and she says okay there's thirty thousand cases yes yes and no that's not the case but. I don't see the benefit of that really of of I mean it scares people but what we really need to be concentrating on is the active cases the desk the hospitalizations those and and the the positive the rate because we're doing more testing but and we're obviously going to have more positives if you have five percent with a hundred people your five percent with the thousand me more cases right yes but if we're but the important numbers the five percent. So to me those numbers should be more focused on and I just don't see the benefit of the total number and we just keep adding that it just looks worse and worse every day what was the benefit of that well I think the benefit of it it is two fold the first is you know for individuals who are you know working in high risk areas such as hospitals in in in the light you know there is a benefit of knowing how many total cases that we have had in the state and knowing that you know a great proportion of those are going to be what we determined as recovered and lot of people to track in the recover cases throughout you know throughout the state and just being able to revive the total context of the picture A regarding cold it I think is very important one out of the of spirit of data transparency and and being totally open in terms of. Skews me the number of cases that we've had so for especially when we see the unusually large increases in the number of cases I don't know if you will recall a couple weeks ago we had an increase hello four thousand cases in one day. So provided a context I believe you know what makes the public better informed Indian also believe it or not we have a lot of people who have taken a liking to epidemiology and they're doing their own tracks of of new cases then in total cases and we get a lot of calls on a daily basis if our numbers or you know explaining wanted us to explain in greater detail our numbers and so you know to keep from in a dating everyone with all the information that we actually look at we do try to provide a complete picture in in one of which metrics that we like to do is the total number of cases that we've had so far. Thank you yes Sir. In it. Help the hi thank you share I think Senator Bledsoe had already asked the same question it that I was going to ask so thank you yes ma'am. If. Okay. Of Representative Dotson. Thank you madam chair I've got a few different questions here but I guess start off with the total number of tests that you take I understand sometimes people are re testing this group does count toward the total number of test the secondary. Test three tests yes Sir they do they count towards the total number of of tests that were performed in a retest positive a second time is that counted as a nother positive case no it's debt the positive on the council on okay yes and then something a question I get asked a lot as antibody testing to find out whether or not somebody's ever had it before or not are we doing are we counting antibody testing yet. the antibody testing we we are counting we are keeping those in a separate database to that's not part of the thirty some odd thousand know that we've had so far are we seeing up a large number of people testing. Add that they've had it before and they no longer have it they have antibodies well the the science on it is is is is still emerging It just to give a little context of the antibodies of there was a recent article that showed that the antibodies only stay in the system for maybe a relatively short period of time versus something like the influenza virus that the antibodies to stay in for much longer period of time In terms of the number of testing for antibodies I'm I'm not sure of how many antibody tests that have been done so far but I can find and get that information to you okay so so what you're saying is if somebody's had it before. they could still contract the disease a second time. There been studies the soda yes Sir okay. I guess that answers that next question So it backed your contract tracing so someone's name by contract tracer and you said you go to the second and third line of that Are they are they required at the second and third line people that are named by the the positive test case required quarantine for fourteen days yes Sir we are we are recommending that they quarantine if they've been in of been in contact with an individual they meet our criteria in terms of significant interaction with the with that person for duration of time yes Sir we do recommend that the that they isolate for a period of time so but but that self quarantine correct there's there's not a state mandate requiring them to quarantine and are they required to test they are recommended to test yes Sir so recommended to test yes and then for those that that test positive. They are required quarantine it's not recommended. I'm. I'm not sure of how the the language in terms of the recommended versus required and I'm looking over met but no we we do. Were recommend that the E. yes I mean the there's a in as a senator hammer mention there's a letter that goes out and it's. It's strongly worded but you know I think there is a few of exceptions in there where they can do certain things but we strongly encourage that so I guess what's the penalty if they don't. Follow the strongly worded letters advice I think that if. We get evidence or see the you know they're friendly you know. Not trying to obey the or fall the quarantine in some instances we have issued a order quarantine those are very few and far between. And and if something like that were to happen I mean there is a a store absent yesterday out of Kentucky where. A couple in there I'm sure you probably have seen it is or are we doing something like that we're we're putting ankle monitors on our Kansans. Not that I'm aware of and I would hope we don't do that I that is not in our plans I would hope so as well And then How are the positivity rates calculated I get a lot of questions the numbers are different I mean we got this many new yesterday this many total tests and then this is the positivity rate and it in I can't do that math a. And it looks like you can either so. We try hard to know is so the positivity rate is calculated by the number of positive test that we have had that serves as I've numerator and the number it denominator is going to be the total number of tests up for that day and you know I. We we tell the public quite often we tried to that those numbers are going to fluctuate right so today is the the twentieth are positive the rate for you know if we pull the numbers right here at this moment of may be you know seven point eight percent right but we're constantly getting new tests that all resulted on on today but we may get him in the future therefore it's going to change our denominator NO numerator for for the twentieth so that's what those numbers four one day will change so even though we tested ten thousand today say and one thousand and tested positive I mean that's a ten percent positivity rate in my calculations but you come out and say oh we only tested positive are positive the rate was five point seven. It. That that's where I'm getting a lot of feedback and questions like you can't do math when I give reports to a I I mean I put out there almost a daily basis what you're what you're reported numbers wearing said. I get comments all the times that you can't do the math here if no the the I I I were now I were. Calculation of positivity rate is pretty straightforward is just the the changing of the numbers that happen from a day to day basis honestly an hour to an hour as we're constantly getting into data the numbers that a constituent may be calculated based on the figures that we have at that moment in time or going to be different times a day absolutely okay absolutely and then finally just in regards to the overall death rates Our other rate death rates in the state that are not related to cove in nineteen or they up down are about the same on a month but basis over previous years home that's the that's a great question and something that we have been looking into and you know the mod my area of interest is is in injury and trauma and we've been looking at of you know those death rates in I would say from traumatic injuries the preliminary numbers that I've seen so far they've been somewhat down I think a lot of that may be due to the function of people not being able to go out as much we seen transportation of motor vehicle transportation being down significantly as a part of the state not necessarily stay at home orders but you know closing on non essential businesses and that's greatly reduce traffic which isn't tire going to greatly reduce one's risk of being involved in a motor vehicle crash you know and so those we we've seen go down but I you know I suspect. You know other Other illnesses or you know let's say debts and suicide maybe were relatively constant if not going up during this time period you know there been a lot of studies to show that there are there's a mental Yet there's you know a lot of people are not able to handle being confined in a hole and of they may be going to mental of crises and not able to seek out help as they normally would have been that may result in increase or you know increase risk of suicide attempts or a complete suicide how to how does that I'm glad you brought that up because it has that counter balance the risks associated with exposure to cove in nineteen if people are being confined to their houses or or its feel as if they need to be or are And not subsequently are committing suicide if that if that rate goes up and we're saying a spike in suicides that that as far more far greater than that of you know. Code nineteen infections or even fatalities That that's incredibly troubling to say the least you know I I certainly agree with you on that and and to that point you know would certainly you know give credit to the work of this committee and and the legislature as a whole in making of services such as telemedicine available you know mental health services through telemedicine available to the citizens of Arkansas may I believe that those have been greatly utilized and you know I think that you know those services should continue to be available specially during this time period. Thank you madam chair. Thank you let's see okay Representative makes. Thank you thanks for being here today thank you I'm gonna jump into the governor's mandate here for you the are you all What if any data are you gonna collect related to that so the Braun my question goes to or the heart of my question is. Do we know our music and I have more people wearing mask are you know our Kansans are a. Freedom loving and very proud people and when they're told to do something sometimes they they're gonna do the opposite just because someone from the government's telling them to do something and we actually may see the opposite of the intended effect here is only metric going to be. Active cases are or we're gonna do polling to seventy people are actually the are you gonna do and we have any idea how many people are actually wearing masks to begin with DO not one of the mandates making a difference are you going to collect data on you know god forbid if we start going out and finding our Kansans for not wearing a mask are you all going to collect that data as well so we can say that you know when this is all over we now. Had two thousand our cans into got fined for not wearing a mask three others like any of that that I. I mean I don't know if the department of hills would would be collecting your dad on funds but certainly will be looking at metrics such as your own number of new cases number of hospitalizations in and you know. I would say that hospitalizations in mortality are going to be a very objective measures that we can look at and if we're seeing in a a decrease or dower Tran and hospitalizations after the mass mandate the and I mean I think this something that the public should know I think that that's something to that we could say Hey you know fourteen days or months after implementing this mass mandate we're starting to see a significant decrease or downward trend in hospital admissions and immortality as a result of cold in nineteen I think that's something that's a data that's a data metric that we know we tracked and that we planned to to communicate. Citing Sekar relation there but you're not actually. Tracking how many people are or not wearing mask you would just be the BAFTA or fax from saying what happens with virus infection that's correct yes Sir all right thank you Representative I think when we do the contact tracing we define contact will sometimes ask if they are wearing a mask or what how much exposure the headmaster not mass that sort of thing a person they got it from and then also as far as tracking you know who may get finder verbally warned about the mask I think we'll hear that in totally I don't know that will be actually tracking that so thank you. Senator hammer. Thank you have your own talk about the death certificates for just a second so as I understand it a person dies in the pronounce Sir Since the death certificate in either through E. waiver raver manually and if there is an inclination that that person had coded symptoms or which tested positive that death at that time is recorded as a covert death is that accurate remain accurate any of that I believe you accurate yes Sir be listed as a contributing calls okay so can people be classified either as underline or as a primary of a covert death without actually having been tested. The it is based on if they had a positive test result and you know DO yesterday okay so they have to have had a test showing that they had code correct prior to the death correct not just have the symptoms but actually be tested in Arkansas we're doing I mean it's get a positive test yeah okay because what raise a question was you talked about underline it how do you determine what is underlying from what is primary call to death because I know that don't you all do a review process when all districts have kids come into the department of health and you look at it and there is a possibility that you could change from the primary position that pronounced you could change it at the health department say now this really needs to be listed as a covert death not as primary not just as underlying. Yes Sir I mean that they could have been it could also happen at the federal level with the national center center for health statistics they also do review of all of our destitute because some provide you the recommendations or they may change the the the death certificates based on you know information is presented in a corner support a medical about the medical examiner's report okay. Do you know of any numbered have our numbers at the death certificate or death numbers change because once the information got to the health department yell said now the should have been listed as a covert death or no they should have been listed as a covert death or what's accuracy rate I'm I'm not aware of any because of me you know they have to have a positive a positive test to even have called in nineteen listed as a contributing factor for for for their demise okay. What about the federal level are you aware that our numbers are deste rates have been changed because of federal intervention one save look better if they had enough time to look at it pass that down to a ship I'm not aware of any Sir okay so the number of deaths that are given because when the governor gets up on the day he said we've had five deaths from code would that is based on the primary diagnosis of whoever the pronouncing physician or hospice nurse was whoever's Lysons that's based on that real time snapshot is that right that is correct yes Sir it usually based on the hospital most most Covin nineteen deaths occur in a hospital and that determination is is based Upon the information we receive from the hospital okay and do you do you have say it's a forgot what the number is now we're over four hundred we're coming up on four hundred. Do you have whatever the total number is now do you have a broken out as to how many of those were primary or how many of those had underlying causes. No you senator Bledsoe slanted question while ago do you do you break those numbers out like that no Sir we don't okay me personally I got a problem with that no two I got a problem with that because death is what motivates fear. And when you get people afraid you get to do a whole bunch of stuff that maybe can't be supported by any other calls other than fear has been instilled in people's heart that they're going to die and I want to say that everyone of those deaths are as valuable to me as the death of the child is conceived but doesn't get to experience physical birth because of abortion they're all that you will okay side bar so in effect on a personal level my mother died in a nursing home during all this not from code but we weren't allowed to go and see her at the time of death because we were precluded from going in so I understand a portion of the pain okay Sir but what I want to know is how many actually died with co would be in the primary college not being an underlying college because they could have had pneumonia they could have had any other number of diseases if I understand it correctly but yet because they tested for positive for coded they automatically get grouped into that same overall number what I want to see is to break out to know how many were actually cope with and the reason par resume asking that is because will it chaired let you may little attitude. Here's a quote from a corner here's a comment from a corner. corners across the country not just Arkansas's wells positions have been instructed requested rule anyone this tested positive as co but no matter what they died from this is a directive. And I will say the rest of your prior reveal who I got it from but if that is the case then I think that is not giving us an accurate depiction as to what those deaths represent so I'd like to see the break out of how many death certificates have underlying causes and how many are primary cause of death from code if you get that for me yes Sir will work on it now and and I will say this first of of my my condolences to you and your family for your loss during this time you know. The with coal of it I I think one thing that we have to consider is that. For your primary cause of death more than likely is going to be respiratory failure or it could be cardiac arrest or it could be some other things that could have been exacerbated by the corona virus so it may not necessarily be listed as a prop this call is this person's death is it may be you may have other of the contributing factors that or or you know your your cause of death will be you know maybe a respiratory failure so you know the primary calls maybe respiratory failure but later on down the line if you look at the contributing factors they may have as Monday may have COPD but yet they also have have tested positive for coronavirus in again you know. Of the coronavirus may have exacerbated dole's underline consent conditions all four of you may have with totally healthy individual or you know we don't have a comorbidity listed. You know they contract corona virus and in the they die from pneumonia right because they were admitted to the hospital and put on the vent and and other things in developing ammonia and that. Was there the calls of death but again maybe respiratory feel you but if you look along the contributing factors it'll be covert nineteen that's listed so but I I will I will get with our vital records but I just want to put a cabbie out out there that you may not see of as a primary cause of death ever listed as Covin nineteen it may be respiratory failure may be other of things that are listed as the primary cause of death okay and last thing I'm I'm not a position and I don't call anybody this higher skilled than I am in that area. Sold for observational my mom had been in there shall for twelve years and if she would have contracted cove in which she didn't but if she had and and she died I would not have wanted that to be the primary cost because. We've been waiting for to go for twelve years and I thank you for packaging all this information. To drive a a directive I think that's where we get into trouble that's well what clarity of the information to absolutely to be able to serve thank you thank you manager if if I may the CDC has a document and has guidance on how to classify cove it does and the numbers at the governor and doctor Smith in the press conferences give out the daily death number is based on as Mr a doctor Porter said based on what the physician feels is the primary cause of death of when they passed away so and then the death certificates there is a lag as far as when those come in it could I mean some of you all of experiences that can be a few weeks can be months sometimes so getting that information up to the death number we give is a is may be a little challenging those to catch up yeah so. Yes this question do you do they do. Clothed testing after somebody died. it's been done before it's not it's not often that I've that I've seen with that's been done in the state in our case is that it could happen that somebody had a heart attack in their house and died and then the you did a coded test and found that they had whether that. Overhead. But may not have any symptoms whatsoever I guess that kind of goes to all of our sort of thinking that what what is this yeah okay let's see moving right along here because we'll have to get going because we have no the committee meeting in here after this and we have clean up so Representative brown. Thank you madam chair you may have answered some of these questions and I just didn't quite put the pieces together but SO Arkansas based on that your last statement about the guidelines from the CDC so Arkansas and all other states are using the same guidelines to report the Copa deaths is that correct. They're supposed to be I mean I I can't speak on what other states are doing but I can I can certainly speak on what we're doing here yes now we're supposed to pay okay and I think you know. This data is extremely important because not only do we want to be make in passing down guidelines and mandates and stuff from above but we want to get the population enough information so they can make reasonable decisions for themselves I think it would really help if there was some way to identify some of these co morbidities specially when you see younger people dying go well why did somebody in their forties die from the as well they might have had a really a terrible contributing factor in their own in there already in existence and this question about testing for covered nineteen after somebody died I'm not certain about the motorcycle accident person who died that was the end listed as a covered nineteen death but that was my question are we. Everybody goes a hospital or the being tested in the end it's classified as a cope with nineteen death. firstly meet me go to the the comorbidities question okay regarding the through our case investigations we are able to collect information on cool or on existing comorbidities there's a a long list that we that we go through and with an individual to see if they have had any of these comorbidities and we do were report that information to the secretary of hill on it on as a part of his daily brief that he received from the data team. regarding I'm sorry your or your other question about Was it. I'm just wrong just wrong to blame for it it was about testing people that had go to the hospital after general yes yes yes sorry about that so I do know that there are guidance is that guidance is in place for hospitals to use to test individuals especially for elective surgeries and procedures where they're supposed to be tested you know up to forty eight hours before the procedure takes place in a do know that hospitals also testing individuals who are suspected of cove it nineteen cases who may be coming in or omitted due to respiratory illnesses and then they'll get tested in yield that information is the a relate back to the department of health even the suspected cases we get a number of we get the daily number from each hospital on the number of suspected suspected Covin nineteen admissions and also those that have been confirmed B. lab testing. But in the situation of the motorcyclist yes ma'am he died in an on in the accident sure would that person most like they were taken to the hospital what they have been I guess everybody who's admitted to the hospital or they tested for Kobe nineteen it with that have been how this person who got killed in the motorcycle accident and ended up being classified as Kobe death. yes ma'am if he if he you know was involved in a motorcycle crash I'm not I'm not necessarily familiar with that particular case into something I can look into a little bit little bit more detail but yes if they if they tested positive for cove it then you know course meeting the CDC guidelines would be determined as to whether or not that person will be classified as a cold that debt that will be included in our numbers but everybody his admitted to the hospital is tested for coated. And. Yeah I mean I I I I would think I would think yeah I would like to think that they would be and then one final question I've heard a lot of concern and I've expressed this concern also every year we have thousands and thousands of people who die from whatever flu or have in that year yes why I mean I think knowing those statistics would help us in relationship to this covered nineteen to kind of make some judgments I really believe people are capable of making good decisions that they have enough information to operate from. So We know what the regular flu deaths are this year. once we enter flu season to be later on this this year in the fall yes mail will be reporting we we have a a regular like I said a part of our briefing to the secretary of health each week he or she will receive you know the number of you know related deaths that we have that we have had number flu related hospitalizations and then also throughout syndromic surveillance program the number of flu related ET visits or flu like symptoms that have been seen in emergency departments across the state so yes ma'am then information as per presented prepared. Thank you doctor Porter thank you sorry sorry Representative we have on our website a Flu data page has the weekly get flu reports that would issue in a season I think last year is around a hundred and eighteen nineteen twenty flu deaths. For the year for the flu season thank you I'll look for that yes. Senator Davis. Thank you and I have for questions I think I'm just going to ask them and then let you guys respond and if the questions already been answered because I was out of the room for a few minutes just say it's already been answered and all watch go back and watch it and I was curious to see if we could and get the definition of a co the death and a K. that hospitalization I think it kind of falls along the lines of what they're saying that you know I think most of most of us have seen the video with and the Illinois department of health where they say echo the death is just someone who has code in their system at the time of death even if they were given a you know you have this disease and you have a week to live and a person died from something else but and if that can just be found with the CDC and that's what you guys are following I like to know that but I am curious because I've heard the same thing with hospitalizations you go in to have a C. section and your tested before you go in you test positive will you go into the hospital for a C. section so you're there for something else and but you're counted as a K. that hospitalization and I'm just curious like exactly what the definition is to understand if that's true so the curious on that and then and a question I get a lot is do you count positives of someone more than once so if you I know people who have been tested every week for Kevin and to get a negative test to be cleared and maybe five weeks in a row they test positive and do you count that as a positive case just once or person I thank and also curious to know the percentage of people that are a symptomatic and I know that occasionally doctor Smith says well that number of people the percentage of people at the time of testing he'll give us that percentage but I'm curious also if you guys track you know over the next fourteen days how many of those people develop seven times and if we can. Ed you know at a press conference or sometime get the percentage of those that are a symptomatic. And. Day cares have remained open this entire time and and we see a lot of different rates going on surrounding schools and I'm just sort of curious what the data looks like in regards to outbreaks and spread within daycare facilities and boys and girls clubs across the state and to maybe help give us an indication and I know it won't be exactly what school looks like but to help with that your last question and. When you guys report Kevin cases and you do it based on the date that the results come in every day so you said you know we had a thousand cases and a week or so ago over the weekend and that that's based on when those results are received I'm curious if you guys go back in when you sort data if you put information in based on the date that those people tested rather than when the results came in and I'm just sort of curious about that I think that would be a better way to look at the data rather than since commercial labs you can get your results from one to fourteen days after you test right so and I just and would like to see that I think it give us more accurate picture and it's a new wants and but I think it be interesting for us to be able to see thank you yes ma'am thank you we can provide that information for you. Okay is that it. They're all my okay alright say. Bruce of Representative Eubanks occur. Thank you madam chair doctor I've had a question as to when to get tested if you've been exposed to somebody because it's my understanding that the incubation periods fourteen days so does that mean you could after contact you could actually the could develop the disease within that fourteen day period and if that's true. What. Good is it to get tested too soon because you could actually be. Negative. But. You haven't gone to the full incubation period so you could end up being positive that so should we even be tested within that fourteen day period if we've been exposed. So in terms of the the incubation time purity and and and I'll have to Get with doctor delay in terms of the actual because I mean the the science is pretty Yes I've heard anywhere between five to six days in terms of buyers incubation peer before person contest positive but then there's also you know as you stated on me can be up to fourteen up to fourteen days so there or you know if you if you test too soon you can't just nod negative in the and later turned positive because you haven't waited that entire time period and I'm I'm not familiar you're familiar of as to whether or not there is a guidance as to getting tested twice right so maybe getting that immediate says in the end after the fourteen day time period to get another test and it's something that You know I'm I'm not again I'm not I'm not sure if that's in the guidance of not would then not be better if it. Once you know you've been exposed to possibly the recommendation beat that that you wait seven days before you're tested just for no other reason just that maybe save on the test. If I may the court thank you know sometimes so if I if I go get tested apartment a final results for two or three days and so my contacts at that point is gonna be about four days since I was around them so I think you're getting into that time I mean then their that tested you know. Four five three four five days later when I was around them so I think by the end I think there should be a pretty good chance that if you've got it if you were at the close contact you should have been exposed initiative. The **** you unless the I would mention the virus around that time so. Okay thank you. Thank you madam chair of the water I have a question are really slow mover store that I've got a question yes there was an incident that happened to me about a month ago. That I think reinforces the fact that there's a great deal suspicion about the data that's coming out concerning the scope of death let me tell you this incident that happened to me I had a minor surgery done about a couple weeks ago. You have to have the surgery done I had to wait an hour to get the test results back while I was waiting and are in who in my home known for quite some time struck her head in the door and said Gerry can I talk to you know said absolutely. He comes in and she says listen we had two good friends who live in little rock. That we don't offer live. Two weeks ago. The man her husband passed away had a heart attack she called nine one one the the aimless picked him up was taken to a hospital here in little rock he died in the ambulance because the EMTs told her they lost the in the ambulance. When he when she gets the death certificate back two weeks later it has covert nineteen on. She called the hospital and I will give you the name of the hospital and the name of the lady later she call the hospital. And she asked him she she tells them she says listen my husband was healthy at least as far as code she didn't know he was gonna have a heart attack. But you said you've got call would nineteen written is destitute okay and this is her exact words what she told me the man at the hospital said let well enough to be let well enough to be and hung up. A dot I want to tell you something if you want to what people are skeptical about all of these this data that's coming out and there's another story about a couple I know when Conway who going to a Dr three testing site who filled out the papers were waiting in line in the car they got tired of waiting list two weeks later they get the test results back they were positive they never worst walk. Can you explain that. No Sir I certainly cannot explain it as to why why that why that happened one more question sure is there an incentive for putting code nineteen on a death certificate financial incentive. To any hospital medical facility no snow actor funds coming from the federal government nothing because that question is asked me a lot you know I really don't know so you don't know of any financial incentive no Sir okay. Senator I think as far as you know what the hospital did I I can't I beg to be good to know who that was if if you're willing to share that information to you and what happy to look into that we we do a heavily rely on the healthcare provider the primary physician as as you know. They are usually the frontline folks they are the ones that you are very involved in the death certificates so they we do trust them we do have to rely on them so but yes would be happy I'd be happy to look into that case as far as the testing of aunt I'd be curious to know that one two we could look into that see if that was you know if it was a hospital or if it was one of our local health units I'm not sure what that was but if you get that information as well I'm inclined to believe that if it can happen in one drive through testing sat in one small city in Arkansas or medium it can happen all of the state it can happen all of the country. And I'm inclined to believe that it is happening all of country and the people are being assigned Covin death on the death certificate when they died of renal failure strokes heart attacks the things and I would like to know the reason why because I can't believe that a physician would rest his reputation our job by doing something like that so I will get that information to the. Thank you thank you. Thank you see okay Representative Dotson. Thank you thank you madam chair Going back to the Something you said a little earlier code nineteen deaths. We probably wouldn't see them as a primary cause on most or maybe even any of the death certificates of we got those So if the primary cause of death is something else. Are the numbers being double counted for whatever the primary cause of death was and covert nineteen. no snow so they wouldn't be double counted if the person you know if the primary cause of death was not see respiratory failure that's one it's probably most commonly use for Covin nineteen related deaths and as a contributing factor they had called in nineteen and they were tested positive that would only get that would only get count it wants and that would be counted as a code nineteen death that's correct yes Sir not as respiratory failure. Null. Okay what if someone had example heart attack and cove in nineteen. Is that code nineteen. At. Contributing factor counted in the daily numbers that are reported by the health department as a code nineteen death. And then it would also be counted as a heart attack in our statistical records. So the my. The numbers that are given daily with the press briefing or that we report daily because of it yes as I said those are those are numbers we get through the hospital's through physicians three contact tracing as we follow that patient and it's reported back to us by the hospital or the physician that person their primary cause of death was cove in nineteen now if it was if they were a positive had a heart attack I think that we might show up on the death certificate. But the numbers we report daily at is where the from my understanding where the physician or the hospital or whoever reports back to us Matt Gilmore died of Covin nineteen that was his primary because of the as I said those deficit of gets in that getting that information back to the primary cause of deaths that we report every day with coded there's gonna be a lag there and some of that information you know made there may be some nuances to it so it so will you be you be updating the information to correct it if you get that data back in say a week or two weeks or whatever and reducing the total number of coded deaths accordingly if if say someone. Was a heart attack or motorcycle accident or I've heard several others mention and it wasn't actually cove it nineteen even though was reported and was in the the the data that was reported in the daily press briefings but was an accurate because obviously if if someone committed suicide you know it wasn't necessarily cove ID they killed them but they may have been reported as such in some of the press refer in our our remember personally they have gone back and had to adjust that number the death number I'm per that several times where the other Smith of the governor says look we actually had a death here that we had to go back and adjust that number so I think I think we do do that yes Sir it in in securing it in real time as is possible in me as we get these reports from the hospital we we cross reference it to our recap database where are all of our cold in nineteen cases was stored just to make sure that we that the person has to have it has had a positive two is in in our database that we can verify before stand up this is a person who the hospital said out of cold it without actually cross reference in it to our our database so there are checks that are done in in near real time so that we can report the accurate data as we get it so so with those that have come abilities or or severe commodities that are likely the actual cause of death. With code being contributing factor I mean are they are those those are all considered cove it deaths according to what you're telling me and yet. You know there's probably I mean weather's diabetes renal failure you know any number of other things. You're saying they're not going to be counted as those deaths later on. Or they. I mean are ours to sister called numbers are going to be way off later on this year if if we had you know on average we're havin six hundred thousand people a year die from heart attacks or or whatever it is and now all of a sudden we have. However many hundreds or whatever dive cove ID and you reduce that amount will also I think to to your point I mean when those you know let's see rental failure is is counted as you know those reports ran on the the primary cause of death and you know that's what the medical examiner the corner or position have determined to be their primary cause of death and what how we determine that the B. cold it related or cold that death is if that person is tested positive and so so they wouldn't so to point it wouldn't be counted twice per se because that report is actually being ran ran on the primary cause of that they can only have one primary cause of death on their death certificate but they can have multiple contributing factors of that contributed to their to their to their death so it wouldn't it wouldn't necessarily be counted it would be counted twice to be counted wants it is. The old is old age or natural causes considered a primary cause of death. At the look at I can remember the ICD ten codes but I I mean I've seen somewhere Covin. Related that someone was a hundred and seven years old and I mean I'm not sure which killed. Which one was was the I mean obviously you might've been contributing factor but at a hundred and seven god bless and I thank you was Archie whoever was might have been a. had some other contributing factors as well you know and so those those are things that call me skeptical but We we are. If we're trying to get data that's accurate and not promote fear in the populace we need to make sure we have accurate data on what the primary cause of death was not counted twice so you thank you. Representative Vaught thank you madam chair so in my corner I listed a death as a heart attack. And and one of my counties and the department of health called a mentality we had to change it to kind of ID and he said it wasn't a covert death it was definitely a heart attack so. And I've got a niece that tested positive and never had a test so how are these things happening and then my second question is my corner said why can't it be on the desk certificate died up cove it or died with code of it. Because there is a difference of dying of the cove identifying with cove it and I think that can contribute to the numbers been out of whack as far as someone who died of cancer may have had somebody my district that was told I think miss of Representative or senator Davis said. A limited time to Leah and I want to say she was given a week to live well she died of cove ID but it wasn't it was the cancer that actually killed or that she was on hospice for but on the death certificate it said she died of cove it so those are kind of issues in which I think you all need to somehow work out or figure out but died of an died we at this two different things and it the definition should be done differently. So if you want to elaborate on any of that sure yeah and I would first to your first point I would like to get more information about may back in the corner yes yes yes and then get that information of from you so good and so I can follow up on it on a case and regarding the second question to covert OR you'll die from covert that persist with cold that the ICD ten codes to sit by you know you know much internet international governing body and so yield they're the ones that you know kind of say these are the the coding guidelines that we have to follow four destitute the coating and and and FOR other types of of you know coding issues and so that I don't know if that's something that they are considering You know. And so I I'm I'm I really can't I can't elaborate yes ma'am yes ma'am. And then you didn't touch on people who are getting back results even though they're not taking tests and this is nurses so I know that it's she's not lying to me you know that and it's not the only one in my district that it happened today yes that that situation this scenario I I can't speak on honestly I don't see the. I don't I don't this obviously should not be happening I mean you know we're trying to get as much ACT recounts as possible and have people to turn a positive who never even taken a test is very trouble troubling problematic and and I would like to again follow up with you on it to get similar work commission so that I can look into that personally okay thank you ma'am thank you. Hey let's see Senator hammer for a very short one yes ma'am one of it up for short question then I got a request of the all yes that the number of deaths that the governor's reporting every day. Clarify that those are deaths reported as primary calls being cove ID or primary cause plus possible underlying causes. Is it which one is it. Well I would think that it would be primary calls amend sorry a primary and also underlying be could be both yeah okay alright and you're gonna give me that information and I I hear you say mad about you know the so let's just make it from the beginning of one all this started that you had start pronouncing on the basis of color would be involved in the discussion too today nor today let's just get it to me for that time frame only so that you can eliminate in my way of thanking eliminates the argument of the lag time we did come back because the testimony while ago was there's not been that many changes when the feds have looked at the death certificates they haven't sent down many changes so unless I misinterpreted something lag time should not be relevant to the information I'm asking for. I think that sometimes you know someone will die here in the state and I mean there's going to be you know. The desk if it might be and you to speak more honest I can't as far as you know the numbers were reporting if Matt Gilmour lives and you know. Tennessee or wherever You know as the governor said before we we reconcile that data you know we will tell will clarify you know the actually they died in Oklahoma or wherever so I think there will be some. Differences and the death certificate number and as far as the code number we were for daily. but we can get you the the numbers that let you ask for but as far as and then to the the delay on the desk of the there's going to be a time lag there I mean we're not gonna have I forget what the actual desperate now but it it's not gonna be exactly that same year we're we're three hundred and fifty seven deaths as of as of yesterday and I mean depending on the the county we may there may be a a lag in getting the actual destitute because for those three hundred and fifty seven digits depending on where where they occurred. Okay but we can. You know we can we can pull the information is accurate or as most recent as possible when we have the death certificates okay and then what the request I have a theologist what what was to begin date that you started pronouncing deaths as covert death either as primary or underlying was it back in March sometime yes Sir we had our first case on March eleventh okay in so it would of you know I think we had a first death I want to say maybe a week or so following that time period okay so what I'd like years I would like to know I'd like to see the list of all other deaths whether it be cardiac arrest whether it be pneumonia or whatever so I could see a side by side comparison because none of the other things that people are dying for getting the attention coverage getting all the attention and people die from other things too and if the same shall be declared an emergency again. And we see that the death rate in other areas our our higher I think we need to have a real serious discussion about how we can justify classifying this is an ongoing emergency when you have an accumulated total of other people died of other diseases that bin push to the sports section of the paper so I'd like to get that please thank you. Thank you Mr chair. Thank you very much German I can't tell you how much we appreciate this is a more than you plant I'm sure but it's all about data and you can see how important I think we can all see how important all this data is to how the conclusions we draw all of the straw. People draw and but I do appreciate you coming in spending the time with us and I appreciate everybody with all your questions yeah and we will adjourn we will get back for another to be thinking in your mind about some of these business case type things because these are the kinds of things we need to be interested in and. And show a need for organizations and just exactly what you've done is quickly get people together and get those those MO you side then get that stuff done which is a problem we have in state government is getting people to. Senate Allen signed the paper. Get on with it thank you very much appreciated thank you.