One of the silver linings in this oppressive cloud of the covid pandemic is the amount of creativity, innovation, collaboration, and compassion that are on display.
The vast majority of people are demonstrating the true character of humanity in their efforts to reduce the suffering of others.
This is on display in the collaboration between Wayne State University in Detroit, Ford Motor Company, and ACCESS- an Arab American social service agency in their efforts to provide mobile testing to first responders in the metro Detroit region.
As you know, for a variety of reasons, metro-Detroit is a covid hotspot with currently over 2,000 deaths in Michigan, most from the metro-Detroit area.
From Wayne State online: “Ford’s in-house incubator, Ford X, is providing Lincoln Navigators and drivers from the Lincoln Personal Driver pilot service, and is equipping them with tents, sanitation, power and Wi-Fi to support mobile testing. Each vehicle will be fully equipped for mobile COVID-19 testing with staff and medical kits provided by WSU and ACCESS.”
So, the team, which I am unofficially calling, “Wheels Access One” will drive to a first responders agency site and and be able to test about 100 people per day, with no prescription needed with test results returned in 24-36 hours.
This collaboration between Ford Motor Co., Wayne State University, the Wayne State University Physician Group and ACCESS launched April 13 and hopes to expand the metro-Detroit area.
“This support for those on the front lines of the pandemic is critical, and we felt we needed to respond urgently by testing first responders and health care workers with drive-through testing,” said WSU President M. Roy Wilson. “Now we can expand our efforts with ‘drive-to’ testing for those first responders across the region who lack access to testing. We are extremely grateful to Ford for helping us expand this initiative and bring mobile testing to these high-risk individuals, and to the United Way for its support of both our drive-through and drive-to initiatives.”
From Wayne State online
This collaboration and innovation is a great reminder for all of us to find our own way to work together to seek creative solutions to the challenges we are currently facing.
To read more about it, please click this link.
Questions for Discussion:
- What problem is this team trying to solve?
- What resources are they using to solve it?
- What are the challenges they are likely to face implementing this project?
- Describe what equipment the team is using:
- How many tests can they run each day?
- What ideas do you have to improve future versions of this program?
Wide Open Research 