A pair of startups from within the Georgetown University Venture Lab
has launched a new web tool called the COVID-19 Testing Locator that
lets users know how far away they are from testing locations and where
they can find the closest site that will test them for the COVID-19
coronavirus.
Anyone in the US can access the COVID-19 Testing Locator for free starting today by visiting www.covid19testing.today.
The locator’s features include showing users how far away they are from
testing facilities, allowing users to view contact information for the
facility if that data is available, and letting users filter locations
based on preferences — such as whether it’s drive-thru only, focused
only on children, or geared towards senior citizens.
“As the COVID-19 pandemic has expanded in the United States, many
companies have teamed up to provide education resources to keep the
American public updated on (this) rapidly evolving disease,” said Raakin
Iqbal, founder of The Social App, which launched the tool along with another startup, Basil Labs.
“We want to provide people with a centralized area to find testing
locations and feel a sense of empowerment in an atmosphere that has most
of us feeling otherwise in the dark on the information. Our goal was to
build a platform for the common good.”
The goal here is for the test locator to eventually help eliminate
medical silos and “foster an ecosystem of trust through an open
knowledge culture,” at a time when hospitals, governments, nonprofits,
and Americans themselves need reliable data and information about this
virus more than ever.
After enough data is collected, The COVID-19 Testing Locator team
said in a news release it plans to create visualizations and address
pain points for testing centers to allow them to better manage their
resources when supplying treatment or handling logistics. The initiative
is also looking to team up with city governments to help them identify
coronavirus hot spots.
“Across the country, COVID-19 testing sites are popping up but are
not communicating enough with one another,” said Basil Labs founder Theo
Goetemann. “This is dangerous. Silos lead to information gaps between
facilities and slow adaptation of best practices.
“We don’t have time to wait — testing sites are maxed out and
hospital beds are filled up. We need to survey and understand patient
experiences in order to maximize efficiency and safety at testing
centers, improve in-patient flows and share this knowledge with testing
centers across the nation and world.”
https://nypost.com/2020/04/08/use-this-locator-to-find-a-coronavirus-test-site-near-you/
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