On Oct. 13, the COVID-19 dashboard showed Sanford Children’s Hospital had one bed available for COVID-19 patients and reported no available beds in the Sioux Empire region. But beds were available, and the data was updated later that day to show an 18 percent bed availability in the region, according to the report.
In a Facebook post, the South Dakota health department blamed a “data duplication error” for the incorrect data. tIts website said the dashboard accessed an incorrect reporting field to pull hospital bed numbers. The dashboard also excluded available bed counts from some facilities completely.
The errors were corrected by the evening of Oct. 13, and the state said it made changes to its procedures to prevent similar mistakes.
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