In light of the ongoing challenges health providers are facing due to COVID-19, the need for effective outbreak management has never been more critical. At the forefront of this initiative is our organization’s commitment to ensuring the health and safety of our residents. In response to potential outbreaks, we recognized the urgent need to track and manage vital information related to disease spread. To address this, we envisioned a solution that could be rapidly deployed to gather and analyze data for predicting impacts on our residents, employees, facilities, and services. We decided to leverage the innovation and agility offered by a cloud-based solution and sought the expertise of our AWS Account Team.
Collaborating with AWS Data Lab
With a clear vision to build a cloud-based outbreak management system, we assembled a small team of developers and required guidance to expedite our build process. The AWS team introduced us to the AWS Data Lab, which facilitates accelerated, collaborative engineering sessions between customers and AWS technical experts to generate tangible deliverables that drive data and analytics modernization efforts. Participants in a Data Lab engagement leave with a customized prototype, a defined path to production, enhanced knowledge of AWS analytics services, and valuable connections with AWS specialists.
After sharing our use case, we participated in a concentrated 4-Day Build Lab. The resulting outbreak management solution, termed the Infectious Disease Management System (IDMS), features a web interface that enables our personnel to manage and input COVID-19 cases while automating demographic integration for both employees and residents.
Our Solution: A Web Portal Built with React and AWS Amplify
Prior to launching this application, collecting COVID-19 case data across 20 communities with over 60 intake personnel was cumbersome. We were relying on spreadsheets and call logs, which led to issues with data quality and integrity. To consolidate COVID-19 data into a single source, we developed a web portal using React and AWS Amplify, deploying it via Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon CloudFront, and Amazon Cognito.
On the IDMS platform, users can create new entries for Persons Under Investigation (PUIs), monitor case statuses, and view demographic information, location, and symptoms. All input data is stored in Amazon DynamoDB. A key feature is the integrated lookup and search functionality utilizing Amazon OpenSearch Service and AWS AppSync, enabling auto-filling of forms for PUI records based on existing employee data. This significantly improved our data integrity, allowing us to accurately track individuals across our communities.
A critical capability of the portal is contact tracing, which allows us to identify individuals who have interacted with PUIs and gather pertinent information. We established our PUI network data model using Amazon Neptune, facilitating the mapping of relationships among PUIs, employees, and residents, which ultimately aids in tracking the virus’s spread.
As the application evolved, we swiftly adapted it to include management for both asymptomatic and symptomatic testing records within our communities. More recently, we extended the system to manage vaccination clinic records, referencing the architectural patterns we established during our AWS Data Lab experience. All data related to testing, vaccinations, and PUIs is stored in a DynamoDB database, which is accessible to downstream applications for operational reporting and future analytics.
Lessons Learned and Current Status
Engaging with the AWS Data Lab empowered our small team to implement an accelerated framework for application development on AWS. We gained insights into effectively using various AWS services to enhance our IDMS solution. The IDMS provided a straightforward web interface that streamlined our intake processes and established a centralized data repository. Since its deployment, we have successfully collected over 20,000 data points, which are instrumental in generating insights to safeguard our community.
Utilizing AWS Managed Services like AWS Lambda, DynamoDB, and Amazon OpenSearch Service to create a serverless application significantly reduced our development timeline. This minimized the overhead of managing and maintaining the application. The central repository for information and the ability to model social contact relationships have enabled us to better predict the virus’s pathways, allowing us to enhance our protective measures for residents. The architecture now supports self-reporting, reducing the need for call center personnel while centralizing data collection for further applications and analytics.
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