(This article has been updated from an earlier version.)
On September 20, Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico. The storm brought down the island’s electrical grid, leaving individuals without power, running water and medical care.
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That’s why the National Health IT Collaborative for the Underserved launched the NHIT Care Campaign, an initiative aimed at helping Puerto Rico’s Federally Qualified Health Centers.
With assistance from PwC and other partners, the effort is providing medical response tools and technology to the island’s 20 FQHCs and 85 affiliated health centers.
The campaign is “meant to be an enabler and to support” individuals, NHIT Collaborative CEO Luis Belen said in a phone interview. He added that the effort is intended to answer the question: “How do we help our friends and family in Puerto Rico as they’re trying to rebuild and come out of this emergency?”
The NHIT Care Campaign is made up of two phases. The first encompasses bringing a version of the open source cloud platform OpenEMR Plus, which was used in Houston after Hurricane Harvey, to Puerto Rico.
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Amazon Web Services donated the hosting services to enable the deployment of OpenEMR Plus. Additionally, Sprint has partnered with Bearcom and ALANAID.org to provide and deliver 80 two-way radios to the campaign to help the FQHCs and health centers better communicate.
The Rotary International Houston 5890 Chapter donated 250 mobile communication systems to Puerto Rico’s Ponce Medical School Foundation. This initiative has been brought under the umbrella of the NHIT Care Campaign. Tony Fernandez, director of the Ponce Medical School Foundation, serves as coordinating partner.
“The whole infrastructure of telecommunications in the island was broken by Hurricane Maria,” Fernandez said in a phone interview. “This is a very critical catastrophe that has affected the ability to coordinate care throughout the island of Puerto Rico.”
Moving forward, Belen noted that the NHIT Collaborative hopes to shift the NHIT Care Campaign from a pro bono operation to a more sustainable, staffed initiative.
The second phase of the campaign will look at long-term planning, including supply chain management support. The team plans to focus on phase two in the coming weeks.
“Right now our strict focus is phase one [and] getting equipment and support that centers need right now on the ground,” Belen said.
Fernandez also stressed the significance of the NHIT Care Campaign’s immediate efforts. “This is one of those situations where technology … can save lives,” he said. “Telecommunication serves as a bridge to reach the underserved and activate resources that are critically required to save lives.”
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