Project Lead(s): Kamran Khan
Issue
As new infectious diseases continue to emerge, many previously controlled diseases are re-emerging and posing threats to health, security and economic prosperity.
Solution
BlueDot has created a real-time decision support tool, called BioDiaspora, which facilitates infectious disease risk management by integrating and synthesizing location and context-specific data.
The system is an advanced, web-based enterprise solution that has an integrated stream of global epidemic intelligence from worldwide infectious disease surveillance systems.
BioDiaspora seeks to put these epidemic threats in context by connecting them within datasets concerning human, animal and insect populations, climatic conditions, health system environments, economic factors and other variables.
BlueDot worked with the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) to investigate how decision-makers in India could collaborate to manage infectious disease events through the use of the BioDiaspora technology.
The team conducted a needs assessment at the PHFI involving interviews with key public health stakeholders, to identify and understand decision-making processes and knowledge gaps.
Outcome
A fully customized, web-based platform for PHFI and other stakeholders in India was designed and developed with India-specific datasets.
A number of users were trained to fully navigate the platform and now have a comprehensive understanding of the breadth of data available within the application.
As the main beneficiary, PHFI now has full access to the complement of data available through the customized BioDiaspora web application and personnel are fully trained to conduct key risk assessments using the tool. The web-based framework is flexible enough to include any type of spatio-temporal data, enabling further integration of secure health data from PHFI and other Indian counterparts.
The team is currently planning for follow-up sessions with cross-sectoral partners in India to fully define where value lies for PHFI and their partners.
They are eager to expand the utility of the BioDiaspora platform within Laos and other Mekong Delta countries (Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar) and intend to apply for Transition To Scale (TTS) funding to develop and implement full data-sharing programs across this region.