A Houston tech startup has created a web application to give the residents of Harris County all the local information on COVID-19 in the palm of their hand.
Predictive Solutions uses a map tool to indicate the county's nearby testing locations as well as cases that have been self reported in the area through the tool. While not trying to be comprehensive, the website is trying to track trends with the disease.
"We developed the app to help streamline communication between the City of Houston, the healthcare community, aid organizations and Harris County residents, while mitigating the logistical nightmare of making sure presumed cases get tested," says Stewart Severino, co-founder and CEO of Predictive Solutions, in the news release.
While the web app is something consumers can use and report on, it's also something that federal, state and local officials can use as a data solution to predicting the virus' trends.
"By providing a mechanism for the city to monitor testing locations and enabling users to self-report symptoms, Predictive hopes to deliver a platform that can help officials gain a firm handle on the trending virus, allowing for decision-making that's directly informed by data," says Predictive's co-founder and CTO, Theo Patestos, in the release.
The startup is a portfolio company of H Town Incubator, a new coworking space in town that provides its members with services like health care and legal counsel. The app can be accessed online through desktop or mobile.
"This is only a starting point for presenting the data," says Severino, who's also the CEO of H Town Incubator. "We need city and state officials, as well as the public to help make this application useful. The app is only as good as the data it gathers."
