The Governor’s COVID-19 briefings constantly referenced the use of data to drive decision-making throughout the pandemic. In turn, these approaches were shared with the public in real time through the state’s COVID-19 Information Hub and a new statewide email program that reaches more than 1.5 million people each week.
The New Jersey Office of Innovation launched the Innovation Skills Accelerator, a free, online program to train state staff to use innovative methods – including design thinking, evidence-based decision-making, and collective intelligence – to solve public problems. The state regularly relies on data for messaging and performance management. One example is the annual report on the state’s response to the opioid overdose epidemic and the NJ Transit Performance Site created by an executive order.