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PurposeThe COVID-19 pandemic has stimulated a global movement of open innovation initiatives aimed to provide knowledge and tools to support policy decisions and actions in the emergency scenario. The authors describe an open innovation process aimed to build an information coordination system to reduce the infection diffusion within the population.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use coordination theory principles to elaborate a framework of activities, resources and dependencies among information resources and producers in the COVID-19 emergency. The framework was applied to develop a case study aimed at describing a health emergency system implemented by Dyrecta Lab (a research laboratory on computer science) and CITEL (a medical research center).FindingsThe authors describe the existence of relevant "flow," "fit" and "share" dependencies within the activities of infection containment and medical treatment. The authors identify eight key resources and a number of actors involved in those activities, and describe a platform able to gather a multitude of epidemic-related metrics with the purpose to address dependencies and support decision making.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors provide insights for advancing the academic discussion on process coordination principles in time-constrained, volatile and highly demanding scenarios.Practical implicationsThe value of the authors' research can be identified for practitioners engaged to develop innovative development projects for public utility. The authors provide a contribution also for first responders and health operators involved in management of the current and future emergencies.Originality/valueThe adoption of process coordination principles is a relatively new and powerful approach to analyze and optimize the processes that characterize the management of emergency scenarios. Besides, the study and application of open innovation in healthcare are partially limited.