IBM Global Business Services has worked alongside the Rhode Island Department of Health to develop K-12 initiative

Challenges

Rhode Island's Governor Gina Raimondo has declared a state of emergency in March 2020 after it recorded a surge in Covid-19 cases. Immediately, leaders from across the state were called in to discuss the crisis, and National Guards were also mobilized. After having an effective meeting, the leaders of Rhode Island realized that they didn't have a good digital setup to combat the virus. The electronic system they maintained was limited and old-fashioned. So far, everything in the state was done manually or through fax machines, pushing them to look for a rapid response mechanism. Rhode Island was seeking an immediate mechanism to deal with and manage the surging Covid cases. By August, things got out of hand. The state recorded over 27,000 Covid-19 cases, with 120 people testing positive every day. Governor Gina Raimondo was quick to use her innovative thinking and suggested a disruptive solution. She insisted on the Department of Health to use existing Salesforce software for contact tracking and further investigations. As the schools in Rhode Island have reopened since the state has used IBM solution to create a structure that portrays the state of Covid-19 and its severity in the state.

Initiatives

IBM Global Business Services has worked alongside the Rhode Island Department of Health to help the state understand the situation and plot an effective roadmap to support children, parents, and school staff. The first step they took is to create a K-12 initiative where Rhode Island added case investigations and contact tracing. In just two weeks, the K-12 initiative grew beyond expectation as the state set out testing call centers and added human resources to support new business processes. The call center went live with over 40 trained agents armed with digitally documented scripts. IBM was helping the Island throughout and stood by their side while building the call center/ IBM Global Business Services allowed the state to create a structure that they can scale to be larger or smaller based on the needs and Covid-19 resurgence.

Soon Rhode Island expanded its manual working of the call center to automatic mode with the help of IBM. Once done, they were able to bring together people, processes, and technology into easy case investigation and contact tracing. IBM brought in all the technologies and the expertise the Island needed to strengthen its crisis management panel. Besides, residents' concern was also addressed as IBM found ways to answer the frequently asked questions by visiting the state's website and chatting with RHODA, an online virtual agent developed on IBM Watson Assistant software. RHODA turned out to be very useful for the Islanders as it has answered over 100,000 queries on topics related to testing schedules, test results, travel restrictions, vaccine eligibility, and others. Watson Assistant Technology answered all the basic phone calls and redirected the complex questions to intelligent routing. After a certain point, it was capable of automatically answering 70% of all vaccination-related calls, while also providing bilingual support in English and Spanish.

Besides providing all stages of technology solutions, IBM Garage also collaborated with Rhode Island authorities on how to move further. They teamed up and applied their respective expertise to discuss health policy options, map processes, and develop predictive models. With the help of IBM, the state was able to better predict future outbreaks and customize its public health response in emergency situations.

Results

For Rhode Island, getting students back to school was a high priority. But they can't compromise students' health over education. Therefore, they embraced the disruptive idea of technology and its tools to streamline education. With the support of IBM, the state was able to develop processes, tools, and a team that enabled children, parents, and families to feel supported and safe, and willing to send students to school premises.

Rhode Island also fast-tracked its contact tracing five-fold and notified schools about the positive cases within a 24-hours time frame. Besides, RHODA is constantly engaging with the Islanders on testing schedules, test results, and vaccines. After the successful implementation of technology in the Covid-19 crisis, IBM is moving to help Rhode Island in other areas like governance, operations, automation, data insights, and others.