We are few years after the call to action that Bill Gates made in his TED Talk on pandemic preparedness in 2015, however, the state of scalable software for important workflows such as data collection and contact tracing has significantly slowed expectations during the current pandemic.
Trump administration letter health agencies regarding data sharing guidelines requested for daily Excel downloads, and efforts to manually search for contacts without software have proven difficult given the magnitude of the current pandemic.
Everything is being built right now.
Research universities contribute to models used by the CDC for case prediction, and this highlighted the serious problems surrounding incomplete data sharing between health facilities and governments.
Dozens of contact tracking apps are emerging, highlighting design decisions about privacy, the need for new technologies beyond Bluetooth for near-field communication, and leading companies like Google and Apple to hit partnerships to power multi-platform mobile capabilities.
The good news is that current efforts are taking the need for better software seriously and spurring the innovation needed to help society better prepare for pandemics.
How can detailed case data be shared by hospitals with governments to better predict cases and mortality, and used to better allocate medical and professional resources?
How can software help local and state governments develop better policies and digitize contact tracking while easing privacy concerns?
The software has the ability to power many of these capacities, and it creates new opportunities for startups to check the newly formed appetite for better data and digital workflows from health agencies, governments local and state and other organizations involved in the fight against pandemics.
