XLRI-Xavier School of Management in its response to the outbreak of COVID-19, has extended its support to Jamshedpur district administration to fight against the pandemic. Over the last few weeks, XLRI professors have engaged round-the-clock with various government bodies, local authorities, and healthcare professionals to prepare a broad and meaningful strategy to manage this pandemic together.
As an initial step, XLRI has begun supporting local authorities in the Surveillance initiative which was led by the Rail SSP with the help of some recent graduates of XLRI, who are residents of Jamshedpur. The support from XLRI enabled the team improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their operations by providing better tools for data entry and conducting training for the team members as well as spending time with them on the field.
A playbook cum checklist was developed with the support of volunteers to be given to people on Home Quarantine. This contains a checklist of items that the Surveillance team needs to take care when visiting the house in quarantine and also instructions on procedure of home quarantine with a checklist to the family on what they need to do to keep themselves safe.
XLRI extended support in developing a dashboard that displayed key metrics and charts for the District Administration to use and act upon. In the process of developing the dashboard, it was realized that there was an opportunity to develop an integrated web based data capture and management system that would ensure the following – Information flow, mirrors people flow, accurate reporting and thereby helping in building a real time dashboard.
The system ensured Integration of all information collection points, to minimize repetition of processes, standardized the inputs as much as possible, automated report creation thereby freeing up time for the data entry operators and most importantly validating to ensure data integrity.
Recently the East Singhbhum COVID-19 Management Dashboard was launched for people of East Singhbhum district for better monitoring of Covid-19. It is also getting developed further to ensure, it captures all the relevant data that is needed by the District Administration for decision making.
In addition, XLRI has been working closely with local authorities in building awareness to bring behavioural change. XLRI faculty members are working on awareness messages and developing creative. The plan is being executed by the District Administration through various mediums.
Besides its core activities, XLRI has taken a pragmatic approach in addressing the Stress Management and mental calmness and assessed that it is important for the team to stay motivated and focused. A workshop was organized at XLRI campus for District Administration staff. Prof. Manish Singhal facilitated the session. During the workshop, emphasis was laid on taking the situation arising out of the corona virus as a challenge and opportunity and working with positive thinking and coordination.
While taking these steps. XLRI had also initiated work on building a Systems Dynamics Model for simulating the impact on the District’s health infrastructure. Prof. Munish Thakur and Prof. Alok Raj adapted a model built by MIT and worked extensively to show the impact of different scenarios of lockdown on when the hospital capacity would come under most strain and the model was shared with the Jharkhand Health Secretary.
Commenting on the support extended to district administration, Prof Giridhar Ramachandran, Assistant Professor (Marketing Area), XLRI Xavier School of Management said, “Life and humanity are challenged with a massive crisis with outbreak of COVID-19 Pandemic. Nothing would be more satisfying for us as academics than bringing our knowledge to use for the larger good of the people. We are happy to facilitate the local administration in an emergency which touches people’s lives. This crisis push all of us, including the institutions, to set a good example. We have already implemented some of the tasks, and will roll out more in the coming days and weeks. We will continue to engage with the local administrations to assess how we can further contribute and make our efforts effective and meaningful. I would like to salute all professionals working tirelessly at the frontline in containing the pandemic”.
