BAO Systems COVID-19 response
31 Jul 2020
Information systems are critical to developing data-driven responses to help countries with a high burden of COVID-19 cases mount aggressive and targeted strategies and prevent the number of cases from accelerating in the less burdened countries. We must all quickly adopt and deploy data solutions that will change the pandemic’s trajectory.
In this rapidly changing environment, BAO Systems is offering support to improve data availability, accessibility, and transparency to inform COVID-19 preparedness and response actions. From collecting and using data on COVID-19 exposure, testing and results, to integrating COVID-19 surveillance data with other existing data, we envision a scenario where governments can better prepare their health system for surges in patient care and target communities for enhanced communication about physical isolation to slow the spread.
We believe strongly in leveraging existing tools, systems, and capacities to ensure a sustainable response that minimizes added burden to health systems and health care workers. Our collection of COVID-19 response tools aim to fill in the gaps and bolster existing infrastructure.
Risk assessment
It is critical for health care facilities and workers to continually assess their own risk for COVID-19 exposure, as well as that of their patients. Our Dharma COVID-19 Assessment is a ready-to-use out-of-the-box assessment module aligned with CDC recommendations for assessing exposure, symptoms, and follow up of COVID-19. From health care providers completing daily self-assessments of their health to surveying patients on the ground, our tool provides a quick and easy solution for immediately collecting ground truth data. Dharma Platform is a user-friendly platform that enables quick customization (days rather than weeks), intuitive user interface for data collection, and can be deployed on Android and iOS devices.
Case-Based surveillance and contact tracing
DHIS2
DHIS2 has released a collection of Tracker configuration packages including for COVID-19 Case-Based Surveillance and Contact Tracing and Follow up, which are optimized for Android data collection. Ministries of Health and organizations supporting them have existing cadres of DHIS2 expertise, allowing implementers to leverage existing staff to support a COVID-19 surveillance system. This existing local DHIS2 capacity will enable countries and organizations to deploy and scale surveillance systems faster and more efficiently. BAO Systems can help you adapt, deploy, scale, and host DHIS2.
Dharma Platform
Our Dharma Case-Based Surveillance module is aligned with the WHO’s case reporting recommendations and enrolls and tracks suspected cases, captures exposure and symptoms, demographics, and contact history. Dharma Platform’s intuitive mobile interface makes it easy for end-users to enter data with no training.
High-level surveillance
In contexts where case-based data collection proves challenging, you can deploy DHIS2’s free COVID-19 Aggregate Surveillance or COVID-19 Surveillance Event Program. This high-level surveillance system captures suspected and confirmed cases. Our BAO Systems team has supported DHIS2 implementation with more than 100 partners present in 70 countries, including with Ministries of Health, the U.S. based Departments of Health, international NGOs, and the private sector. We currently host and support over 400 DHIS2 instances. Therefore, our expertise with DHIS2 will allow us to tailor this solution to meet all of your needs.
There are a number of tools currently being implemented on the ground to support client level and aggregate data collection that can be scaled to include COVID-19 data capture. Additionally, many low-and-middle-income countries utilize DHIS2 as their health management information systems.
We can leverage the existing infrastructure to improve interoperability between data systems to facilitate integrated data analysis. Our broad Integration Suite of tools enables data exchange between DHIS2 and primary data collection tools and popular BI tools for advanced analytics, including for Dharma, CommCare, ODK/KoBo, Power BI, Tableau, and DHIS2-DHIS2.
BAO Systems Analytics Platform ingests data from multiple sources and in multiple formats, aligns data, and makes it available to advanced BI tools for data analysis, visualization, and sharing. Using the Analytics Platform, Ministries of Health and organizations supporting them will be able to better use existing data to identify and predict high-risk areas for COVID-19 spread, mobilize much-needed resources to high-risk areas, and prepare for surges in COVID-19 related hospitalizations.
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