New portal integrates COVID-19 data at PHC level in Bengaluru for the first time

It is named Public Health Activities Surveillance and Tracking (PHAST)

The health department of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has designed a new portal named Public Health Activities Surveillance and Tracking (PHAST) that integrates all COVID-19 related data at the Public Health Centre (PHC) level for the first time. “This will help plug gaps and empower PHCs to make data-based interventions,” said a senior civic official. Crucial information, such as ICMR data on people who have tested positive for COVID-19, contact tracing data, ILI-SARI cases reported from private hospitals, international passengers coming into the city, are being reported to the central COVID-19 war room from where every evening it is disseminated to the zonal level. This not only took up a lot of resources, but also created situations where the data is effectively lost by the time it reaches PHCs. “There was chaos at the PHCs. Now all these data files are directly entered on the PHAST portal, which can be accessed by PHCs, zonal level and the COVID-19 war room. The information is just a click away,” said the official.