The National Health IT Collaborative for the Underserved, a public-private partnership founded in 2008, launched the NHIT Care Campaign to bring healthcare resources to Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.
The two-phase campaign, rolled out with guidance from PwC and other supporting partners, aims to provide emergency medical response tools, supply chain management and technology infrastructure to Puerto Rico's 20 Federally Qualified Health Centers and 85 affiliated health centers.
"FQHCs and affiliated primary care provider networks have urgent need for power, medical supplies, communications and telemedicine support to conduct emergency medical response and coordinate care in coordination with disaster response operations," the campaign's website reads.
The first phase of the campaign comprises immediate disaster response. The collaborators will deploy a version of the open-source cloud platform OpenEMR-Plus, which proved successful in response efforts after Hurricane Harvey in Houston. They will also provide supply chain assistance.
The second phase involves rebuilding Puerto Rico's overall healthcare infrastructure, including strategic planning, funding oversight and supply chain management support.
Along with PwC, partners in the campaign include Amazon Web Services, Health Gorilla and Williams Medical Technology, among other organizations.