Fearless will help build a new "front door" for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to enable the federal agency to better track health care data and make it easier to respond to a pandemic.
The Baltimore technology company won a three-year, $35 million contract to modernize how the CDC collects data from local health departments and other sources. The CDC does not have a standardized way to collect data, with each state sending the federal government slightly different types of information, said Nichole Weems, Fearless' portfolio director. Fearless officials believe that a new data collection platform will help the government compile and validate information to help make it easier to look at regional trends and allow states to compare health outcomes.
The new software could help the agency see when a future pandemic is on the horizon by identifying trends like an outbreak of a disease in a particular region of the country. The government can currently do this type of advanced data tracking but it takes a lot of time because of the fragmented nature of local health departments, Weems said. Since all health departments have their own methods of storing data — like, for example, using a different order of month, day and year for a person’s birthday — it is difficult to do the regional comparisons necessary to use numbers properly. Improving the CDC's access to data will also make it easier to make quick decisions in a crisis like the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Their ultimate goal is to be ready for any future pandemic,” said Weems, referring to the CDC. “It's not about if there's going to be a future pandemic. It's about when.”
A new "front door" will standardize the CDC's data collection by having every local health department or similar organization send the federal organization information in the same way. Weems hopes that by providing a common foundation for health data that it will be easier for states to work together on health initiatives. The CDC will also use the platform to send information out to health departments and hospitals across the country. The contract is part of a wider CDC effort to revamp its data collection called the Pandemic Ready Interoperability Modernization Effort.
"When everyone's doing it the same way it fosters tighter working relationships among states," Weems said. "By building that unified front door we are enabling states to work [together] with a common foundation."
Fearless has previously worked with the CDC on the public health tool ReportStream during the pandemic to make it easier for testing facilities to report data to the CDC. The company has grown massively in recent years, adding an organizational management division with $17 million in new financing and being a part of the consortium that organized Baltimore's federal Tech Hub bid.
