Overview

Project overview

Over the past 2 years, a small research and development team of Humber alumni created the prototype for a new web-based application

This project is designed to serve the Windsor-Essex Compassion Care Community (WECCC) in tracking community well-being.

This application...

• provides a customized, steamlined data-gathering workflow,
• compiles aggregated community data in a variety of readable and extensible formats for research analysis, and
• algorithmically generates actionable recommendations for individual care.

Windsor-Essex Compassion Care Community

As of 2019, WECCC includes nearly 1500 individuals and 50+ organizations working together to improve quality of life for residents across Windsor and Essex County. Their research team is comprised of researchers from the Universities of Windsor, Ottawa, London, Toronto and Hamilton.

Leveraging both staff and volunteers, WECCC employs a number of survey materials to "raise happiness, improve quality of life, and reduce inequities for elderly and vulnerable citizens". These surveys allow for tracking hundreds of metrics for members, creating baselines for individual members and the community at large, and tracking change over time.

The Humber team

When the Humber team was engaged in 2018, funded through a grant provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), WECCC's data management process was comprised of a wide variety of inputs and storage media, from pen-and-paper to enterprise-grade clinical management systems.

The Humber team's challenge was to prototype a custom, integrated solution for data collection, profile management and data analysis.

Through the discovery, research and development phases, the Humber team produced a fully-featured prototype. This prototype was so successful that WECCC started using it for real data beginning in January 2020, and to date has captured data for over 200 people, measuring up to 64 metrics per person per survey, providing 27 charted indicators for each individual (including change over time), and 25 charted indicators for community reporting in the aggregate.

Furthermore, a REST API for the data has been created and used to integrate with both Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets, so that up-to-the-minute reporting data is available in endless configurations.

Modelled after the Agile methodology, the phases of the project have significant overlap, with research and development cycles iterating as more information came to light, and more features were added.