In March 2020, shortly after the first confirmed cases of COVID-19 started to increase rapidly throughout Pakistan, the Health Department of KP quickly developed mechanisms to track patients and potential infection hotspots via the Integrated Patient Management System (IPMS). Immediate requests were made for support in managing the pandemic, developing feasible strategies for lockdown, and preparing guidelines for enforcing SOPs. Additional technical assistance was required to support the IPMS team in system improvements.

The support project was aimed at:

• Continuously improving the monitoring/case management mechanism.
• Analysing data compiled in the system to provide insights to the minister on a daily basis.

Team Activities: A team of four Fellows was hired on May 8th, 2020, and immediately began compiling daily situational reports to update the Health Minister on the status of the pandemic across KP. Updates were made to the IPMS system to speed up the data entry process across 150 access points. The team was also instrumental in policy-making for a smart lockdown strategy for reopening the tourism sector of Galiyat Abbottabad, where a detailed survey was conducted to calculate the loss to the tourism sector if a blanket lockdown was to be extended. Working closely with the IPMS team of consultants, the team was also able to develop a QR-code-based patient tracking system, which was integrated with the IPMS platform. The IPMS support team was instrumental in supporting the government in managing the pandemic, and we are really proud of the Fellows who worked on this project.