How Temple’s tech team built a COVID-19 data dashboard to support campus health

Temple University is one of hundreds of colleges and universities across the country that use Medicat to verify immunization records for students. 

This article first appeared in Technical.ly, November 3: https://technical.ly/philly/2021/11/03/temple-covid19-data-dashboard/ 

To track COVID-19 vaccination rates on Temple University’s campus, Interim Chief Information Officer Larry Brandolph knew he and his colleagues at Philadelphia’s largest university, with nearly 40,000 students enrolled, had to work fast.

Last year, Lewis Katz School of Medicine developed a rapid testing process that allows students to visit a clinic, swab their own noses, and put their swab in a vial with a 3D barcode corresponding with their student ID in a box with other vials. The box goes to the medical school, which does testing that day, and results come the next day, Brandolph told Technical.ly.

“Early on, we needed a system to test COVID on campus,” he said. In fall 2020, “we did over 100,000 tests through that process via clinics on campus where students set appointments.”
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"Students and employees can submit their COVID-19 vaccination status through the Medicat portal and specify whether their vaccination was made by Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson. As new vaccination cards are uploaded each day, Temple employees verify each vaccination card before it is approved by the system."

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