As COVID-19 cases surge throughout the country, many government teams are working to ramp up testing, manage hospital capacity, and ensure residents that are vulnerable and homebound are able to access critical resources they need. Several states are breaking daily confirmed case records or are surpassing records for hospitalization. Solutions that were proven effective in communities that were considered early hot spots are now in high demand as other locales aim to control the spread of the virus.
U.S. Digital Response has supported several projects in these hot spots, from Seattle to New York City. Each project is replicable and can be used to support government teams and communities in need of assistance.
Here are some examples of projects we’ve given support to:
- Teams that are planning to ramp up testing can partner with USDR to schedule testing, map testing sites, and make use of testing data to improve contact tracing. In the City of Seattle, USDR volunteers served as technical advisors, providing impartial vendor recommendations to help Seattle ramp up COVID-19 testing within three weeks. The testing sites and scheduling process allows the city to process 12,000 COVID-19 tests every week and 7 patients every 5 minutes.
- USDR volunteers worked with New York City to build a hospital management dashboard using real-time data. Disparate data sources from various public agencies in New York City were making it difficult to digest information and make quick, actionable decisions. Data aggregation and mapping implemented by USDR volunteers allows government teams to track PPE and ICU bed capacity, ultimately preventing overwhelm at hospitals.
- Sheltering in place again means that homebound community members need greater access to food assistance. USDR volunteers can help expand P-EBT, coordinate community matchmaking for food delivery, and help local groceries and farmers markets sell and deliver their food online. We recently launched a tool in partnership with Washington D.C. where residents placed 1,500 food delivery orders in 24 hours.
- Government leaders and the public need to understand how their state is doing in tackling COVID-19 in order to guide their decisions and mitigate the spread of the virus. COVID Exit Strategy (CES) aggregates publicly available information to track a state’s progress toward reduction in COVID-19 symptoms and cases, health system readiness, and increased testing. It equips state leaders and those who can influence them with data on the measures that matter most. COVID Exit Strategy has been a collaborative effort with United States of Care, Duke-Margolis Health Policy Center, and Resolve to Save Lives. The public health and epidemiology expertise of this partnership has been essential in shaping the site.
Government teams in need of assistance in any of these areas can share the details in this request form and a member of USDR’s team will follow up within 24 hours to help. Learn more at www.USDigitalResponse.org.
