Wireless Integrated Pest Management System:

An important city-wide initiative to reduce pest infestations and significantly lower the use of, and exposure to, toxic pesticides in New York City's public housing buildings.

As part of the agency’s New York City Childhood Asthma Initiative, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) launched an initiative in public housing to reduce pest infestations and significantly lower the use of, and exposure to, toxic pesticides.

Develop and implement an integrated platform to track, manage, and analyze facility inspections and repairs. 

DOHMH’s integrated pest management approach involves making apartment repairs and tracking and evaluating the repairs to minimize pest populations. In addition, the NYC Housing Authority (NYCHA) also needs to track inspections and repairs.

Both organizations were seeking an approach that could quickly collect information that was readily accessible for analysis and decision-making.

Intellis provided a configured version of its FOUNDATION.Conditions module on mobile pen tablets that allows 23 inspectors to collect data at the point of their inspection work on digital questionnaires.

The FOUNDATION platform allows for the creation of questionnaires with built-in logic, multiple security features, and audit trails to facilitate data collection, ensure data integrity, and allow for the wireless extension of their existing systems. Highly flexible, the module is adaptable to countless forms of data collection and analysis.

Inspectors upload their completed inspections to the server using WiFi, with a specialized data security component developed by Intellis. Data can then be downloaded for statistical analysis and instant report generation. Intellis's quality assurance tools also provide the staff with management screens to track inspections and productivity.

FOUNDATION.Conditions data collection allowed DOHMH to create and edit questionnaires for deployment to the field, while providing secure data transfer and reporting.

INTELLIS PROVIDED:

• Consulting on project scope and questionnaire content
• Initial system setup
• Deployment of questionnaires on wireless pen tablets
• Configuration of wireless transmission management
• Configuration of secure encryption for wireless transmission
• Deployment of quality assurance tools for project and staff management
• Configuration of data download to statistical programs.
• Deployment support
• Training of all members involved with the project
• Ongoing technical support and maintenance

As a result of their work with Intellis, DOHMH is able to collect data at the point of work, wirelessly transmit inspection data, and access inspection results immediately for project management and analysis.

The configured FOUNDATION system is easily used to create and edit existing electronic questionnaires that are deployed via the Internet. This minimizes the need to retrieve tablet computers from the field and reduces downtime. The inspection results are stored in databases that are configured for ready integration with industry standard statistical packages including SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) and Microsoft Access.