COVID Risk Management Tool

About

DASH-SAFE: A Multi-Modal GIS-Based Real-Time COVID Risk Assessment, Management, & Navigation Tool Tech ID: UA21-048 Invention: “The unprecedented circumstances surrounding COVID-19” was the pervasive buzz phrase of 2020 and post-COVID re-entry in 2021. More than ever before, businesses, universities, congregations, and communities are seeking ways to allay people’s fears, anxieties, and stress as they re-enter their workplaces and communities and come back to something that resembles normalcy. This invention provides people the information they need to reduce their stress as they re-enter. This is done by providing near real-time and real place information about factors that increase viral risk (e.g. crowding, pinch-points, building occupancy and ventilation), mapping out potential areas of risk, and providing users potential routes around those areas. This information and dashboard can be applied to many campus-like settings, such as university campuses, shopping malls, office and industrial parks. The dashboard provides real time feedback to users. The feedback uses survey results for areas where people aren’t following virus mitigation techniques, building facilities information like percent maximum occupancy, ventilation and humidity, and movement data. The dashboard serves as an information hub for risk assessment and mitigation for campuses at large. Furthermore, this dashboard would provide information for individuals to assess their own risk. Post-COVID, the dashboard can be used to overlay positive emotions on real places, to identify areas of comfort and well being, and provide building owners and operators, and organizations feedback regarding occupant experience, thus identifying environment features that enhance their occupants’ health and well being. Background: Lack of information about safety risks and comfort of places causes stress and anxiety for those entering those spaces, especially in the context of viral risk. Public and private policies for large groups of people are created, in large part, based on the idea of risk and reward. The multi-variable analysis required for assessing risk lacks the necessary variables. For example, number of people in certain locations, ventilation in specific buildings, number of people social distancing or wearing masks, etc. And, even if that information is collectible, there is a large time gap between collecting the information and assessing the information. This is a solution to the real time information gap. Real time risk assessment for those who make policy and for those who are on campus weighing their own risk and reward. This allows people to make the decisions that are right for them. Much like applications that allow drivers to chart a path around events like accidents, this dashboard allows individuals to chart their path around risky situations, and therefore mitigating risk for individuals and groups alike.