COVID-19 has heightened the importance of trusted and readily accessible data to support sound policy, strategic, and operational decisions, effectively facilitating decision-makers to manage through the pandemic and plan critical actions to enable an economic recovery. Federal, state and local leaders have been bombarded with a myriad of questions – ranging from the number of available hospital beds, to the impact of small business loans on employment or the sequencing of actions to reopen segments of the economy. Having accurate, reliable data is essential to answer these questions in a timely and trusted manner and understand the impact of the decisions.

In an article for the GCN Insider, Guidehouse Leaders, Robert Audet and Vasil Jaiani, have identified five actions public sector CDOs and data leaders can take to maximize the usefulness of data to advance information-driven decision-making during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.