Emerging infectious diseases are key public health threats. We are currently experiencing one such infectious disease (COVID-19). While the light at the end of the tunnel seems close for COVID-19, better preparation for future emerging infectious diseases is critical. As such the 2021 COVID-19 challenge program invites exploratory papers to identify critical information that can help with future disease diagnosis, prognosis, treatment, and containment. The findings should be based on historical data (COVID-19) and need to identify critical information that could have improved the outcome, in retrospect. We strongly encourage authors to submit their original contributions describing their algorithmic, methodological or empirical contributions.

Critical information can be from (but not limited to):

• Genomics data
• Population data
• Patient data
• Electronic health record (EHR) data
• Systems data
• Human factors data

The challenge program will accept regular papers (8-10 pages). Papers should be submitted at https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ieeeichi2021. Paper submissions must adhere to the IEEE Proceedings Format.

When submitting papers, the authors must select the Challenge Track

ICHI uses double-blind reviewing for full and short papers, submissions should therefore be anonymized and all references and links disclosing the authorship should be blinded appropriately.

All submissions will be published in IEEE Xplore and indexed in other Abstracting and Indexing (A&I) databases. Accepted papers have an oral presentation slot at the conference. Selected papers will be invited to submit the extended version to the Journal of Healthcare Informatics Research and a fast track review will be conducted for the extended papers.