Humanitarian
organization Direct Relief International has launched an online aid-tracking portal
called the Online Medical
Aid Distribution Map. Announced on Dec. 16, the Web tool provides
pharmaceutical and medical manufacturers with precise data on where their aid
packages have been shipped to.
Founded in 1948, Direct
Relief is a nonprofit organization that provides aid such as asthma inhalers,
syringes, IV bags and other medical supplies to community health clinics for 18
million low-income and uninsured people.
Direct Relief's aid-tracking
map runs SAP BW (Business Warehouse), which provides medical supply inventories
and provides resource planning for the health care firms using the tool.
One set of data comes from
the HRSA (Health Resources and Services Administration), a government agency
that provides health care to people in need. However, due to federal
regulations, Direct Relief must file a Freedom of Information Act request to
acquire this info, Ross Comstock, Direct Relief International's IT director, told eWEEK.
Direct
Relief submits this request because medical files are listed as one of the nine
exceptions, or types of info the government may decide not to release,
according to Damon Taugher, director of Direct Relief U.S.A.
"The HRSA makes a great
deal of the data publicly available in summary and by searches, filters and
demographic reports at their website," Taugher told eWEEK.
"Basically, by filing a Freedom of Information Act request each year,
Direct Relief is able to access the largest amount of data provided by the
clinics in the most flexible format."
From the SAP database, the
data then gets transported into Simpler Systems' data search
engine, which stores 50,000 records of Direct Relief shipments and allows
for health care companies to search the visual map by state, clinic or topic
such as HIV cases. Companies can also create their own reports from the data.
"[Simpler is] a
nice tool that takes what's otherwise kind of complex data and makes it
searchable and more intuitive," Taugher said.
"Rather than the typical
weighted results of a traditional search engine, the system allows use of an
extensive, intuitive and particularly relevant range of search operators such
as filter, sort, aggregate, list and various 'between' operators for producing
search results in specific ranges," he explained. "There is a unique
drill-down feature which allows for instant filtering of results based on a
search result, or drilling down to that point's underlying data."
Meanwhile, Direct Relief
incorporated the visualization functionality of Esri's ArcGIS application into
Google Earth maps to display where the medicine is going, Taugher said. At this
stage, the map can overlay shipping locations with data on shipment routes from
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on hurricane tracking and
the Environmental Protection Agency on factors such as air quality.
"It's easy for us to
take data from our systems and just overlay that against other third-party
data," Comstock said. "It literally takes less than a few minutes to
bring in another layer that may be relevant to the information we're looking at
and help us with our decision making."
Transparency is key when
donors want to know where their aid has gone, according to Comstock. ESRI's
ArcGIS software provides this transparency.
"Historically that's
kind of been an issue for nongovernmental organizations, this whole issue of
transparency," he explained. It's essential to be able to report what
Direct Relief does with a donation, he says.
Another
focus for the Distribution Map is "precision and accuracy," Taugher
said.
Online mapping tools could be beneficial to donors during a crisis, such as the Haiti earthquake. "The
mapping allows companies to see a snapshot of the most urgent needs and that
their donations are reaching their destinations," Taugher said.
Despite the advantages of using the online map during disasters, Taugher sees the mapping tool as
valuable on a daily basis, and Direct Relief aims to provide the tracking tools
before the next emergency, he said.
Still, Direct Relief's online map is ready for any occurrence. "When the next Hurricane Katrina happens,
we feel like we're going to be really well positioned coordinating that network
of resources," Comstock said.
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