In August 2021, Hurricane Ida hit Louisiana and destroyed buildings while leaving thousands of people without electricity. The staff at Alliant Health Solutions (AHS), the QIN-QIO for Louisiana, contacted health care facilities to provide assistance while providing daily updates to CMS about the situation on the ground.  AHS staff had a unique tool to aid in their efforts - detailed, interactive maps of the healthcare facilities in the hurricane’s path.

Mansi Dholakia, AHS senior healthcare analyst, created digital maps using Power BI, a Microsoft tool that transforms data into rich visuals for reports and dashboards. After combining data from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) along with Alliant’s provider data in Salesforce, Dholakia created maps to locate impacted facilities. The maps could even be filtered by provider type.

“(Staff) could identify facilities in the hardest-hit areas and, by hovering over the facility’s name, the name and contact information of that facility was made visible,” said Dr. Kim Rask, AHS chief data officer.

Mary Albin, executive director of AHS End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) Networks, said the maps helped her contact impacted dialysis centers, relocate patients, and send daily reports to CMS.

JoVonn Givens, AHS QIN-QIO task order director, said the maps made her CMS daily reports more impactful because of the overlay of the recruited nursing homes and hospitals in coalitions with the FEMA data.

Givens’ teams contacted nursing homes affected by the hurricane to offer support and find resources after evacuation, including securing food for nursing home staff staying at facilities 24/7 to provide patient care.

Before the hurricane, AHS used the applications to develop interactive state maps and other visuals to display COVID-19 data.  Givens said AHS strives to evolve and enhance its technologies and processes. When the next natural disaster strikes, she said, “Alliant will be ready.”

Submitted by Rukiya Campbell on behalf of Alliant Health Solutions. 

This material was prepared by The Bizzell Group (Bizzell), the Data Validation and Administrative (DVA) contractor, under contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Views expressed in this material do not necessarily reflect the official views or policy of CMS or HHS, and any reference to a specific product or entity herein does not constitute endorsement of that product or entity by CMS or HHS. 12SOW/Bizzell/DVA-1160-07/18/2023