DisasterMed Wants to Track and Manage Health For Disaster Shelter Evacuees

After hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2009 and evacuees were dispersed across the country, a cluster of 30 MRSA infections were reported in a shelter in Dallas, Texas, according to the CDC. This challenge of disease outbreak following disaster scenarios was the subject of the Southeast Startup Challenge held in Georgia this past March.

“They wanted a solution that would be able to track and identify infection symptoms as they appeared in the shelter,” says Kyle Dymanus, who, along with five teammates, represented the city of Augusta, Georgia in the hackathon.

“As we were doing more market research, we found out that the real need, both outside and inside of the United States, is a bigger problem — management of all care for all of the evacuees coming into the shelter. For example, when someone comes in [who needs] dialysis or is pregnant — there’s so many medical needs that evacuees require and it’s currently very difficult to manage in these stressful situations.”

Following their $25,000 grand prize win at the hackathon, now-CEO Dymanus and her team formed R6 Industries, a startup that uses technology to improve communication and health outcomes during disaster situations. The team includes Nathan Dillard, Mike Mallow, David Ray, Safia Siddiqui, and Aaron White.

The startup’s platform, called DisasterMed, monitors symptoms in disaster areas to stop any potential spread or outbreak occurrences, as well as centralize evacuee information in one database to facilitate access from all shelters. Currently, each individual shelter asks the evacuee to fill out paper forms with personal information and required medications. If they need to transfer shelters, they have to fill out another form — there’s no communication between the two.

“With our product, the idea is once you come into that first location, the volunteer will have a tablet and fill out that information electronically,” says Dymanus. “It will track that information in real-time and transmit that data to the Department of Public Health or a city official that’s trying to monitor the status of that shelter. If an evacuee gets moved to another shelter, their information moves along with them.”

“So if they need a glucose monitor, their new shelter will have that.”

The platform will automatically assess the risk level associated with the evacuee. Based on their needs, the platform will assign the right bed with specific requirements; for example, if they have a respirator, they will need access to an outlet.

Officials will also have access to a live map of active shelters in the area, see a summary of risk levels, numbers of quarantined people, and specific health issues, so resources can be allocated efficiently to the right shelters.

“In the U.S., more than 1.6 million people are displaced from their homes every year,” says Dymanus. “More often than not, they’re from underserved communities, so they don’t have access to the resources that they need like family nearby, or even a car to be able to drive away.”

Another problem they’re hoping to solve with the platform is the $17 million in emergency room costs spent during Hurricane Katrina — all because of medication refills, says Dymanus.

“For any organization that’s tracking information during disasters, since we’re collecting data in real-time, we can use this for predictive analytics looking down the line to see what we saw during the disasters and the opportunities we have to improve the experience. When the next disaster hits, we can be prepared.”

The team, comprised of engineers, programmers, and medical students, plans to pilot DisasterMed this fall before the 2019 hurricane season.

The startup is currently bootstrapped with their prize money from the pitch competition. However, following pilots this fall, they will gear up for fundraising mode.

“The next step is looking for potential investment down the line, as well as grant funding,” says Dymanus. “We would be looking for $150,000 for further development for proprietary patenting for our technology and for ensuring that we understand fully our customer market.”