Today, those same commitments still fuel MacDonald, a family medicine physician in Washington, D.C. and an executive at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), where she serves as chief consultant to the deputy under secretary for health.
“… At the VA, MacDonald spends “most of the day, every day,” she says, helping to monitor and manage the agency’s pandemic-era efforts to protect 9 million VA-enrolled veterans. (There are more than 18 million veterans in total in the U.S.) MacDonald also helps to maintain quality health care at 170 VA Medical Centers (VAMCs) and at more than 1,200 VA sites of care.”
“Early in the pandemic, at the height of uncertainty over COVID-19, MacDonald and other VA leaders, including senior executives at the VA Office of Information and Technology, began collaborating with industry partners to address new and existing challenges highlighted by the national emergency. One of those partners, Microsoft, was called upon to help transform key VA business processes and accelerate modernization efforts already underway across the agency.”
“Now, to track and react to active COVID-19 cases among veterans, as well as current bed space at VA hospitals, MacDonald and other VA leaders rely on a series of cloud-based dashboards, built with Microsoft’s Power BI, Bing Maps Platform and Azure App Service. The dashboards offer a first-hand view at near real-time data across the largest integrated health care system in America…”
“An executive-level dashboard provides VA leaders with situational awareness of COVID-19 cases and virus impacts in an aggregate view across the entire department. Another dashboard delivers mission-critical information to health care system leaders who manage the 170 local VAMCs. The final dashboard summarizes what is known about the status of COVID-19 patients who have been tested or treated at VA facilities.”
“These tools access a single, authoritative VA data source built on Microsoft’s SQL Server technology. The system harmonizes VA data on patient information, system capacity, staffing and inventory…” Read the full article here.
Source: A duty to protect: How the VA is keeping veterans safe amid the pandemic. Civilians too – By Bill Briggs, November 11, 2020. Microsoft.
