Tool allows hospitals to update their available ventilators on a daily basis 

A team of professors and students from Cleveland State University has developed a new web application that will allow public health authorities to track the number of available ventilators each day by city, county and state. CountSupplies.org allows hospitals to quickly and easily register and update their inventory of ventilators both in use, and available for use, on a daily basis.

Dr. Patricia Stoddard Dare, professor of social work, and Dr. Miyuki Fukushima Tedor, associate professor of criminology, anthropology, and sociology, developed the specifications for app with technical specs designed by Computer and Information Science student, Abhijeet Bhimrao Tupe under the mentorship of Computer Science Professor Dr. Sathish Kumar.

Launched March 26, the application allows public health and government authorities to identify the location of available ventilators. Passwords will be provided to hospitals for the purpose of registration and to authorized government and public health officials so they can view the results.

The project builds off of the development of Drughelp.care, which was also led by Stoddard Dare and Tedor, and seeks to better connect individuals seeking drug treatment with available spaces in local treatment facilities. It was supported by CSU’s Office of Research and a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Data to Action grant through the Cuyahoga County Board of Health.

“CountSupplies.org can provide critical information necessary to help manage the coronavirus pandemic,” notes Stoddard-Dare. “If hospitals devote 5 minutes to the one-time set-up and less than 2 minutes per day to update their available ventilators, this will save lives. 

“Knowing the number of in-use and available ventilators in each locality can guide decisions about shelter-in-place orders in specific areas and inform appropriate distribution of ventilators from the National Strategic Stockpile,” adds Tedor.

The tracker will be available to participating hospitals and government authorities, free of charge. Cleveland State’s team is currently working on the next phase of development, which will upgrade the mapping feature and add a daily update email that will be sent to participating hospitals.

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