Providence’s DetectionMap provides a nearly real-time view of local COVID-19 prevalence among its patients, down to the neighborhood level

RENTON, Wash., (December 10, 2020) – With its new DetectionMap, Providence is making information about local COVID-19 infections available to the people of the communities in which it operates. DetectionMap is a publicly available online “heat map” that shows where COVID-19 is prevalent in a given geographical area where Providence cares for patients. Unlike most county-level reporting tools, DetectionMap lets people zoom into their neighborhood to see how many patients with COVID-19 Providence is seeing in that area.

Providence, the first health system to treat a confirmed COVID-19 patient in the U.S., has been at the center of the nation’s pandemic response since the beginning. During the early stage, Providence’s analytics and insights team created centralized dashboards to keep their 120,000 caregivers informed about the growing impact of the pandemic. “As COVID-19 began to spread like wildfire, we realized we needed a way to share what was happening within our health system in as close to real time as possible,” said Ari Robicsek, chief medical analytics officer at Providence.

Providence, as one of the largest health systems in the nation, cares for thousands of patients on any given day. Through those interactions, the health system captures a vast amount of information about the illnesses people are experiencing. Using data that has been de-identified to protect the privacy of all patients, Providence’s new online tool helps people understand the current state of the pandemic by tracking a combination of patient symptoms and test results, as compared to online tools that rely solely on test results that usually lag the onset of symptoms. A more complete picture of COVID-19’s impact in a given community will further the work of state and county health agencies to compile and share de-identified data for the public good.

DetectionMap today focuses on COVID-19 and Providence plans to expand the tool to show the prevalence of the seasonal flu in the future. Providence hopes that health care systems across the U.S. and around the world will use their de-identified information to help inform the public. Providence invites other health care partners to learn about their COVID-19 response strategies by visiting its coronavirus solutions website.

DetectionMap displays data in the geographic areas for which Providence has sufficient data. The areas currently covered by the map include the greater Seattle area, Eastern Washington, the greater Portland, Ore. area, Los Angeles, and Orange County, Calif.

About Providence
Providence is a national, not-for-profit Catholic health system comprising a diverse family of organizations and driven by a belief that health is a human right. With 51 hospitals, 1,085 physician clinics, senior services, supportive housing and many other health and educational services, the health system and its partners employ more than 120,000 caregivers serving communities across Alaska, California, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, and Washington, with system offices in Renton, Wash., and Irvine, Calif. Learn about our vision of health for a better world at Providence.org.