Delhi's government school teachers manage COVID data at integrated war room

Number of hospitals, availability of beds, patient count in each hospital, oxygen supply and death analysis, updated in real time, every single day.
Scenes from the Integrated Command and Control Centre aka COVID War Room. (Photo| Parveen Negi, EPS)
Scenes from the Integrated Command and Control Centre aka COVID War Room. (Photo| Parveen Negi, EPS)

The exit to the stairs on the second floor of the Delhi Secretariat Building will take you to a huge hall with tinted glass doors. In it, organised desks are arranged in four rows and four columns fixed with monitor screens quite identical to Macbook Pros.

Two video walls on the right and five screens on the left display the national capital's COVID-19 statistics: Number of hospitals, availability of beds, patient count in each hospital, oxygen supply and death analysis, updated in real time, every single day.

The description of the above space might sound like a COVID call centre, when in actuality it is Delhi COVID-19 War Room (CWR) aka Integrated Command and Control Centre (ICCC), set up last year in May.

On May 15, 2021, Arvind Kejriwal launched the room with this tweet: "Delhi government started ICCC that collects, collates and analyses data on hospitals, oxygen, vaccination and other aspects of Covid management in real time to help make informed decisions and be of better service to the public."

The ICCC war room deploys 70-odd government schoolteachers from Delhi. Initially, they had no idea about health-related technicalities but today are adept in compiling COVID data from all sources, among other duties.

This includes heavy technical data, ringing up hospitals to garner data, sending reminders to district officials, preparing audit reports, and even finalising the COVID health bulletin every day.

The teachers were first put into groups to handle different responsibilities. The largest group updates the dashboard with district-wise data of containment zones. Another group compiles daily data on patients: hospital admissions, discharges, deaths, recoveries, patients on ventilators, etc.

A third group analyses data to compile the graphics designed for the big screens and perusal of higher authorities. Still another group compiles bed availability and vacancy in hospitals with one person in-charge of bed audit. One person compiles requirement of oxygen supplies from hospitals, and another does an oxygen audit.

All employees and schoolteachers at the ICCC work six days per week for over eight hours (9:30 am and 6 pm) per day. On some days, extra work crops up because of which they have to stay back, sometimes even as late as 9 pm.

Deepak, a government school teacher deployed to compile data on the availability of oxygen in the city, says, "We received adequate training before being put on these big screens. Since then, we have not faced any issue with this kind of data compilation."

When asked whether it was difficult to deal with health-related technical details and long hours at the CWR, an employee, Ravina, says, "Due to my teaching background, I was able to sit comfortably and deal with technicalities. Although we initially faced a couple of issues because we had no knowledge about the integrities of data collection in the world of health, the doctors and officials associated with this project helped us learn and get through with it. This work gives us a feeling of serving people, even if we are not directly in the field."

A senior official associated with the project, adds, "When the health department was undergoing a major staff crunch amid the third wave, the situation even here had worsened as we found ourselves in a spot where we were in dire need of staff to fill these positions."

It was then that the higher authorities decided to hire the teaching staff from Delhi's education department as schools had shut down and the teachers were at home. The official further reveals: "A majority of the employees currently working at the COVID War Room are teachers, some of whom work as chief data operators. We have a mixed age-group of people working here. We had given them training and shared with them a set pamphlet on the types of questions they need to ask hospitals and districts in the goal of data collection. Our job was to guide them in doing the same."

What happens when schools reopen and the teachers have to resume their respective duties? “"This future is evident and to be ready for this day in advance, we have already written to the health department to make arrangements to hire the same number of staffers, preferably having a health background so that we are ready with substitutes," the senior official reveals.

Data screens in the ICCR

The ICCR officials add that Microsoft and Cloudstrats Technologies are helping the government on data visualisation, while the portal and all the screens are directly being maintained by the National Informatics Centre (NIC).

Two Video Walls: The first video wall at the entrance of the COVID war room provides numbers on the status of vacant, ICU and oxygen beds. The second video wall displays the real-time monitoring of oxygen: Current oxygen supply in each hospital, oxygen requirement per hospital, etc. for speedy delivery of oxygen in case of any kind of emergencies.

Five Smaller Screens: First screen on the left displays live details on COVID/ non-COVID patients/ oxygen requirement per hospital. Second screen displays the status of invasive ventilators: total number, patient requirement and those lying vacant.

A third screen shows an oxygen audit report updated every hour. The fourth screen displays a death analysis report from each hospital, while a fifth screen update on patients’ admission, discharge and recovery.

How ICCC data is put to use

All 219 hospitals in the city have to upload data by 4 pm about their bed, oxygen, patient, deaths, recoveries and ICU related details on the portal, only accessible by the ICCC employees. The data is further shared with higher authorities of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), after which the department takes required measures.

The health bulletins by the Delhi government are prepared in the CWR. A senior official compiles the bulletin comprising number of COVID cases, positivity rate, number of patients hospitalised, availability of oxygen beds, ICU beds, COVID tests done, etc.

It is then shared with the state health department (MoHFW) and Government of India that keeps track of oxygen supply in each state. A dedicated team at MoHFW approves the health bulletin after which it is made public.

CWR updates Covid figures on the Delhi government mobile app 'Delhi Fights Corona' that comprises of COVID hospital status: total beds, oxygen beds, ICU beds (with and without ventilators). CWR also looks into home-isolation figures - current number of patients, recoveries, etc.

Manisha Saxena, Principal Secretary at MoHFW and ICCC in-charge, says, "The COVID War Room deals with day-to-day Covid data. Right now, it manages and monitors all aspects of COVID. If a new aspect needs to be monitored it will be added. And if schools reopen, we will monitor that data as well. As and when the situation changes, we will adapt accordingly as we treat this space as a comprehensive war room."

About the COVID room's monitoring of the home isolation process, Saxena says, "There are multi-level arrangements being done for that case. It is a comprehensive task that has its own vertical. Under that vertical, some senior officers are looking after the whole thing then there is a data team in the CRW taking care of the entire data and analytics. Similarly, there is a vertical for everything."

Reminding hospitals to update

Each hospital registered on the portal is given login identities to upload their respective details. If they fail/forget to upload this information, a dedicated team at CWR sends a reminder to the said hospital. If the work is still not done, the hospital’s medical superintendent is contacted.

Despite these efforts if the portal is still not updated, the senior officials compile a list of such defaulters and send it to the higher authorities who immediately decide upon the corrective measures to ensure no delay in garnering such data.

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