The health department is working with seven private sector teams of experts, designers and engineers to confront public health issues impacting the city with technology solutions. The project is backed by city-sponsored microgrants.

Delali Dzirasa said his software company is working on a tool to make sure Baltimore doesn't become the next Flint, Mich.

Fearless Solutions LLC was tapped by the to develop a data dashboard that maps public health information for the city. The health department collects a lot of data each year — on disease tracking, restaurant inspections, lead levels, etc. — but it is fragmented and there was no way to consolidate it and map trends or anomalies across the city.

That is the problem that Fearless took on, developing a dashboard that could bring all of that data together and give clear, concise picture of health trends in Baltimore. Residents and health officials will be able to look at certain health indicators to see which neighborhoods they most affect and how they interact with other health issues in the city, Dzirasa said. The dashboard will also be able to create predictive models based on past health trends, so the department can start planning how to confront new health problems before they come up.

"We don't want Baltimore to become the next Flint," Dzirasa said. "Hopefully, this tool will help the health department stay ahead of any problems like that and see where they need to be dedicating their resources around the city."

The health department is working with six other teams of tech experts, designers and engineers to confront other public health issues impacting the city. The seven projects — being developed under the city-sponsored umbrella program called TECHealth — officially launched this month, backed by microgrants totaling $35,000. Each team was matched with a local tech firm, incubator or innovation group and a health department partner to support them.

"We knew the challenges we wanted to confront, but we didn't have the right tools or expertise to do some of the things we wanted to do. So we brought in people who could," said health department CIO Mike Fried. "We wanted to build a bridge between the government sector and private sector, so we could really take on these challenges together...We all have a stake in the wellbeing of the city."

Another project being developed is an online tracking and communication platform that will allow citizens, government and health officials officials to collaborate on strategies to reduce child death rates in the city. Cathy Costa from the health department has been working on confronting child fatality issues for a long time, but she said this added layer of technology will really help to be able to track data on issues like sleep death rates and fetal/infant mortality cases all in one place.

"Now, we'll also be able to crowdsource recommendations and collaborate across city agencies to figure out what we need to be doing about the data," she said. "It's an important step."

The launch of the project build outs happened Thursday, when teams presented their concepts to government officials and private investors.

Here are all seven projects in the initial TECHealth cohort and the incubators/organizations supporting them:

• Here4Reentry(housed at Betamore): Developing a resource tool for citizens returning from incarceration
• BadBatch(housed at Code in the Schools): Developing an overdose notification and outreach system
• Food Computer School Program(housed at ETC): Designing a curriculum for an after-school educational program to use computer-programmed mini greenhouses to grow produce in different climates
• Health of the City Dashboard(housed at Fearless Solutions): Using geographic information and data analysis to create a dashboard and early warning system for critical city health data
• Estimating Asthma Burden(housed at Impact Hub): Using analytics and integrated data to estimate levels of asthma in city neighborhoods
• Child Fatality Review(housed at I3 Center for Healthcare Innovation): Building out an accountability and improvement system for tracking patient information and tasks from the Child Fatality and Fetal-Infant Mortality Reviews
• PH Ambassador System(housed at NDC): Modernizing civic health engagement and public health ambassador program through an integrated web portal and digital toolkit

Morgan is a reporter for the Baltimore Business Journal. She covers technology, education and health care.

www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/news/2017/03/08/baltimore-tech-firm-tapped-to-make-sure-flint.html