The Public Technology Institute (PTI) recently recognized COG with a PTI Solutions Program award for the National Capital Region (NCR) Dagger System, a dashboard that shares healthcare resource and capacity data for situational awareness, planning, and decision making. COG also received recognition for the Contact Tracing Interstate Exchange, a multi-state collaboration that developed a secure and standard means of sharing COVID-19 contact tracing data across jurisdictions.

COG Principal Health Planner Jennifer Schitter led both projects to completion and oversaw their implementation throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

Schitter worked closely with Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab (JHU/APL) and the region’s hospital associations to develop the Dagger System. Dagger uses healthcare resource data in dependency models, historical trend charts, and helps users prepare for best- and worst-case situations. The development of this tool required system users, data providers, and decision makers to come together and create a data pool that accurately represents the region. JHU/APL is continuing to enhance Dagger with geospatial views, new data sources, and a forecasting ability that can be used during the COVID-19 response and can be deployed during future emergent events where hospital beds, staffing, and medical equipment may become a scarce resource.

Schitter also led a partnership with the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) to develop a secure platform to exchange COVID-19 contract tracing information across the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. The success of this program helped build a network of public health professionals and has since expanded, now including Pennsylvania and Delaware.  Currently, this multi-state group is exploring ways to share COVID-19 variant data to assist epidemiologists in their research and investigations.

“These projects not only standardized how information is shared, it assisted public health professionals in their pandemic response, and built a network of peers who continue to address the many challenges of their work,” said Schitter.

Schitter played a critical role in COG’s pandemic response and will continue her work with these projects, as well as her other roles including the lead staff for the Health Officials Committee and Human Services Policy Committee.