Katherine Kopp
Managing COVID vaccine distribution in West Virginia | RStudio
With a little help from open source software
Learn more: Data Driven West Virginia: https://business.wvu.edu/research-outreach/data-driven-wv
DDWV PPE forecasting: https://wvutoday.wvu.edu/stories/2020/04/27/wvu-business-experts-partner-with-the-national-guard-to-forecast-ppe-needs
DDWV inventory management system: https://wvutoday.wvu.edu/stories/2021/03/22/a-different-kind-of-science-wvu-chambers-college-data-scientists-propel-west-virginia-s-acclaimed-vaccine-strategy-with-digital-inventory-management-system
West Virginia National Guard: https://www.wv.ng.mil/
Shiny: https://shiny.rstudio.com/
West Virginia leading nation at start of vaccine rollout: https://www.vox.com/first-person/2021/3/4/22313540/covid-19-vaccine-west-virginia
In the United States, approximately 2.5 million doses of COVID vaccines are being delivered each day, and how these doses go from the manufacturer to a shot in someone’s arm varies by state, often with mixed results.
But early on in the vaccine distribution process, one state led the pack in terms of using the majority of vaccine doses it had been allotted. That state? West Virginia.
Part of what has made West Virginia successful is the creation of an inventory management system using Shiny, an open source framework for building interactive web applications. The system was built by Data Driven West Virginia, part of the John Chambers College of Business and Economics at West Virginia University, in collaboration with the West Virginia Army National Guard.
Using Shiny has provided visibility into each component of the vaccine supply chain, leading to the creation of distribution plans that are able to quickly and efficiently match supply with demand, getting vaccines to the right people in the right location at the right time.
RStudio’s mission is to create free and open-source software for data science, scientific research, and technical communication to enhance the production and consumption of knowledge by everyone, regardless of economic means, and to facilitate collaboration and reproducible research, both of which are critical to the integrity and efficacy of work across industries.
RStudio also produces RStudio Team, a modular platform of commercial software products that give organizations the confidence to adopt R, Python and other open-source data science software at scale, along with online services to make it easier to learn and use them over the web.
Together, RStudio’s open-source software and commercial software form a virtuous cycle: the adoption of open-source data science software at scale in organizations creates demand for RStudio’s commercial software; and the revenue from commercial software, in turn, enables deeper investment in the open-source software that benefits everyone. Check out www.rstudio.com
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Katherine Kopp | COVID vaccine distribution Shiny app walkthrough (mock data) | RStudio
Learn more:
Data Driven West Virginia: https://business.wvu.edu/research-outreach/data-driven-wv
DDWV PPE forecasting: https://wvutoday.wvu.edu/stories/2020/04/27/wvu-business-experts-partner-with-the-national-guard-to-forecast-ppe-needs
DDWV inventory management system: https://wvutoday.wvu.edu/stories/2021/03/22/a-different-kind-of-science-wvu-chambers-college-data-scientists-propel-west-virginia-s-acclaimed-vaccine-strategy-with-digital-inventory-management-system
West Virginia National Guard: https://www.wv.ng.mil/
Shiny: https://shiny.rstudio.com/
West Virginia leading nation at start of vaccine rollout: https://www.vox.com/first-person/2021/3/4/22313540/covid-19-vaccine-west-virginia
To understand just how hard it is to get vaccines to the population, it helps to understand where it can go wrong. This starts with how vaccines are packed into containers.
To fill up a container, Pfizer places 195 vials into a tray, and up to 5 trays into a single container. Moderna puts 10 vials into a small box, and then combines a minimum of 10 small boxes into a single container. In most states Pfizer and Moderna ship directly to the organization that will be administering the vaccine to the population. This could be a hospital, a pharmacy, or any place where trained professionals will be putting shots into arms.
But what happens when a pharmacy receives a full container from Pfizer, 975 vials, but only needs 600?
West Virginia has removed this complication by shipping directly to five hubs strategically located throughout the state. Within each of these hubs, containers of vaccine vials are broken down into smaller components and then either picked up or shipped directly to the hospital, pharmacy, or organization that will be administering the vaccine.
These hubs are managed by the Joint Interagency Task Force (JIATF), a team of teams composed of public, private, and governmental organizations as well as the National Guard. The Joint Interagency Task Force is responsible for drawing up a weekly distribution plan for each hub, in alignment with CDC allocations, and matching vaccine supply with demand.
By using a statewide system managed by a central organization, there’s a level of agility and fluidity that allows each hub to adjust to a variety of changes in order to maximize the number of vaccines that are being administered to the population each week.
RStudio’s mission is to create free and open-source software for data science, scientific research, and technical communication to enhance the production and consumption of knowledge by everyone, regardless of economic means, and to facilitate collaboration and reproducible research, both of which are critical to the integrity and efficacy of work across industries.
RStudio also produces RStudio Team, a modular platform of commercial software products that give organizations the confidence to adopt R, Python and other open-source data science software at scale, along with online services to make it easier to learn and use them over the web.
Together, RStudio’s open-source software and commercial software form a virtuous cycle: the adoption of open-source data science software at scale in organizations creates demand for RStudio’s commercial software; and the revenue from commercial software, in turn, enables deeper investment in the open-source software that benefits everyone. Check out www.rstudio.com .
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rstudio
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rstudiopbc/
And LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rstudio-pbc/