Given the pandemic, when policy makers are desperate for every bit of data they can get to make better decisions, a “beautiful” new solution has rushed real-time Covid vaccination data to decision makers.
Prior to the pandemic, leaders of the health system for the nation’s Capital, DC Health, decided to move to a new system for tracking vaccinations. They selected STChealth, a leader in immunization intelligence and a company with a full cloud-scalable SaaS public health solution, knowing that all data could be synced real-time into the DC Health Oracle Cloud System through a partnership with Tharseo IT, an Oracle Cloud partner.
The process of creating and syncing the new system was scheduled to take 12 months. Then the pandemic hit. STChealth, along with Tharseo, built-out an accelerated transition to the STC/ONE platform that would allow DC to manage all Covid-19 data through the STC IIS. This was accomplished in an astoundingly short timeframe, less than four months.
Eric Wimer, CEO at Tharseo IT explained the challenge: “If DC Health wanted a standard STChealth report, that’s easy. But if they wanted something that wasn’t standard, there was a time delay, and maybe a cost, too. With Covid, even an hour can be critical. What their stakeholders needed was instantaneous access to all of the data, with no time delay in order to get ahead of the Covid in a proactive manner.”
He explained the solution: “We determined that the best course of action would be to pull in the data from all of the agency’s disparate sources housed in various locations. That data would be redeployed into one secure, centralized environment, so that it could be extracted and analyzed for immediate action; permitting the agency to make policy in real-time. With that in mind, we created the DC Health DataBridge, which allows the agency to send vaccination data from the STChealth SaaS Application built on AWS to DC Health’s Oracle Cloud Environment that securely resides behind the District’s certified firewall.” From this centralized environment, the data can then be pushed into a larger enterprise-wide data warehouse that serves the entire District of Columbia. Wimer called the solution, “One of a kind,” adding, “It’s highly replicable, simple and fast.”
Chrissie Gorman, Program Manager at STChealth, praised the new system, saying, “Our goal at STChealth is to give all decision-makers, whether it be at the patient, clinic or jurisdiction level, the best possible information. The new DataBridge offers our clients the ease and convenience to dive into the data we provide in their most efficient way, allowing informed decisions across the board.”
Anderson Andrews, the Chief Information Technology Officer for DC Health, concluded, “The “DataBridge concept is elegant in its simplicity. It allows the agency to focus on its core competency – data analytics. We can run any vaccine information at any time knowing that it provides the accurate and timely data necessary for agency and District-wide reporting. This reporting capability enables the Director to create timely and relevant public health policy.”
Tharseo IT is a minority-owned, small, disadvantaged business, HUBZone company founded in 2014 and headquartered in Washington, DC. Tharseo IT specializes in assisting federal, state, and local health and human services agencies develop, design, deploy and maintain eligibility systems on Oracle-based infrastructure. We provide Oracle on-premise and cloud-based infrastructure, scaled agile design, development, integration, data migration, delivery, 24/7 operational support, customer support, and training for a variety of systems. Tharseo IT was named one of the 10 Most Promising Oracle Consulting/Service Companies in 2019 by CIO Review magazine. With more than 50 years of combined experience in the IT industry, Tharseo IT’s senior management has successfully led teams that have designed, built, deployed, operated and maintained large IT systems for multiple government agencies.
About STChealth
STChealth’s mission is to eradicate vaccine preventable disease and empower individuals through our innovative technology and service solutions. We deliver on our mission through passion and innovation, through teamwork and inclusion, through superior client service and products, and a relentless pursuit of the next ”big idea” that will advance immunization intelligence. Starting with developing the first Immunization Information System (IIS) and over 33 years of experience in the immunization ecosystem, STChealth is positioned today to support more than 1/3 of COVID-19 vaccinations reported in the U.S. through our network of over 54,000 Providers and Pharmacy Partners. More information can be found at www.STChealth.com