ASU professors and students create new H1N1 software
PHOENIX -- According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) the H1N1 flu virus is now widespread in all but two states.
Arizona health officials are working hard to make sure those who are in most need of the vaccine get it.
County public health officials are using a new software program from the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona to help them decide where to send the doses of vaccine as they come into the state.
Currently, the CDC says it sends vaccines to the state and then they go down to the county level.
Officials with the Maricopa County Department of Public Health then decide where to send the new doses within a matter of hours. But, with the new software program, instead of having to punch a numbers into a variety of different spreadsheets, the program puts all of the information into one database so it can be quickly analyzed.
“This decision support system factors in the relevant information, such as vaccine doses, which doctors and hospitals can best utilize the vaccine based on the types of high or low risk patient populations they serve, where previous doses have been distributed and where the vaccine dissemination would be most effective, it maps out the suggested vaccine distribution to best manage the outbreak,” Ajay Vinze, Professor of Information Systems at the W.P. Carey school of Business explains.
Vinze also helped develop the new program and goes on to say while there are a number of different types of vaccine coming into the state, some which are only appropriate for children and others for pregnant women, the new software helps decide which vaccine is needed where.
“Now, public health officials can focus on key decisions, while allowing this decision support tool to make the needed optimizations,” W.P. Carey school of Business Associate Professor Raghu Santanam says. He too helped create the software.
“We have even included details, such as vaccine orders from different doctors across the Valley and then communications back from them about how much more vaccine they need or how much they might still have stored for others to use,” Santanam adds.
Others who helped design the new software are Associate Professor Benjamin Shao and W.P. Carey school doctoral students Trent Spaulding and Aaron Baird.
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