The challenges have included an issue that might at first appear mundane, but which could have become a significant drain on resources if left unresolved. In her first stint as incident commander of the team at Shoreline in January, McNamara quickly realized people were spending far too much time putting together rosters of personnel, as well as managing payments, securing accommodation and other administrative tasks associated with their deployments.
It’s leveraging a third existing relationship, this time with Microsoft, to scale out a temporary cloud environment through Azure to support data gathering associated with drive-through testing clinics, case investigations and contact-tracing, as well as data analysis of the coronavirus outbreak. The tech company is also helping the agency create more efficient digital workflows linked to acquiring and processing biological samples from patients at the state’s health labs.
The pandemic may well change politicians’ minds. McNamara is firmly convinced the cloud is an ideal environment to bring together very large data sets that include everything from opioid prescriptions to trauma records to help tackle health issues. And it can be especially helpful in tracking and evaluating rapidly evolving disease trends such as the spread of COVID-19. “It’s been difficult to get funding for an initiative like that, and yet it’s so necessary to respond to a crisis like this.
Looks like a nice hotel