How the Israeli government created a synchronized and efficient control center to fight COVID-19

Built fully on monday.com Work OS

Implemented in less than a day

Multiple complex workflows

The State of Israel has certainly experienced its share of national crises over its history, but few events could have prepared the Israeli government for responding to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak.

Currently, Israel is doing everything in its power to “flatten the curve” as the number of positive Coronavirus cases grows rapidly by the day. Hospitals and labs are struggling under the demand for COVID-19 testing and treatment while healthcare supplies and equipment are in danger of running out fast.

To move quickly, Israel established a National COVID-19 Control Center. The Control Center brought together several different civilian and military agencies, for the first time, to collaborate to manage the crisis and support the labs, hospitals, and first-responders working on the front lines.

Aside from responding to the outbreak, the biggest challenge these newly pulled together authorities faced was how to work together smartly and efficiently. There was no central cross-government system with standard processes and procedures in place to manage the crisis.

And the situation had the potential to rapidly grow further out of control if the Control Center didn’t take coordinated actions immediately.

The challenge

Collaborating with multiple ministries and departments during a national emergency

Each ministry and agency has its own unique systems, processes, and methods, but none were connected to support this effort. Having no centralized platform to coordinate, communicate, and manage their efforts made execution extremely difficult.

Communicating with hospitals, labs, and first-responders effectively

The Control Center was having a hard time collecting accurate and timely data from each lab and hospital administering COVID-19 tests. They had to call each location on the phone and, most of the time, they were unable to get through to anyone – leaving the Control Center with insufficient data, from a few locations, and no clear indication of where things stood on a big-picture scale.

If they were able to get the information they needed, they entered the data into spreadsheets. Relying on spreadsheets meant that by the time the right person reviewed the spreadsheet, the info was already outdated and was subject to human error.

Sourcing and managing suppliers for essential healthcare equipment

Hospitals, labs, and first-responders were worried that they would quickly run out of essential healthcare equipment and supplies to be able to continue doing their jobs.

Several people across government agencies and departments were receiving ad-hoc leads on suppliers through text messages and emails. It was becoming impossible to track and manage all the incoming data from different sources and channels. And there was no proper process in place to follow up with those leads either.

On top of that, so many government bodies and agencies were involved with their own procurement and approval processes, making everything even more complex and hard to manage.

No one knew how to tackle this tough situation, and time was running out.

The solution – one powerful, centralized and flexible platform

Within just a few hours, the Control Center, together with the monday.com team, implemented the monday.com Work OS. Ministries and departments involved in the response now use and rely on monday.com to manage and coordinate their efforts together as one unified team – at any time, from anywhere.

“With monday.com, we’ve been able to successfully connect four different government agencies that had never before collaborated towards a single mission,” says the leading IT Project Manager.

Collecting accurate, real-time data from labs and hospitals

The Control Center, together with the team at monday.com, created powerful workflow apps, with web and mobile forms to collect accurate, real-time data from labs and hospitals.

They customized the forms with the relevant information that they needed, such as how many tests were conducted, the number of positive test results, and resources needed so the Control Center could help them keep moving forward, fast.

Lab directors and hospitals no longer have to wait on a call from the Control Center to submit data – they could enter it into a centralized system instantly, at any time.

“We’ve made it really easy for hospitals and labs to send us information. All they have to do is fill in a short form every day, without even needing to log into the system. And now the process is so much faster and more efficient,” says the leading IT Project Manager.

Making smart, fast, data-driven decisions to maximize efforts

The Control Center, together with the monday.com team, also configured multiple dashboards to streamline the decision-making process.

The dashboards give senior-level management a high-level overview of what’s actually possible in a 14-hour workday and what they need to do to maximize the efforts in hospitals and labs.

“We display these dashboards on TVs around the Control Center now which are synced with real-time, unified data,” says the leading IT Project Manager. “To be able to see all this data pulled together from across the entire operation like that is incredibly powerful.”

It also gives them the ability to track relevant trends to understand if some hospitals and labs are at capacity or are in a position to take on more.

Managing a multi-level procurement process seamlessly

Multiple connected workflow apps are now in place to ensure a smooth and efficient procurement process – from collecting leads and reviewing the certifications, to approving the equipment and making the purchase order – including all the financial approval steps in between.

“With monday.com, the entire approval process now takes us only a few hours whereas, before it took days or even weeks,” says the leading IT Project Manager.

Their workflow apps include features tailored to their specific needs:

Bid management for suppliers: The COVID-19 task force team now has an integrated web-based form on its website, in Hebrew and English, so any vendor and supplier anywhere in the world can easily submit an offer for supplies related to the response. These offers flow directly into the monday.com workflows, in real-time.

They also added a Twilio integration so that suppliers marked as “not approved” receive an automatic text message notifying them of the decision.

Permissions settings for approval processes: Every workflow app is built with complex automations and permissions that give specific officials permission to grant approvals while locking the capability for everyone else.

Simplifying sign-offs: Instead of printing every bid and making officials sign them manually, a Gmail integration was implemented that triggers only when final approval has been given. This saves time printing, signing, scanning, and uploading the forms again.

Continuing to strengthen the Control Center’s efforts

The Control Center, with close guidance and support from the monday.com team, continues to expand the solution to gain even greater benefits, with immediate plans to tackle the following projects next:

- Building and implementing a global supply transportation process
- Adding an integration with MS Teams for contextual communication

We’re proud to be supporting the National COVID-19 Control Center and this national project during this challenging time. And we hope that, working together, we can flatten the curve in the coming days.