We are excited and proud to announce that our partner ORTEC has won the 2013 GBC Health Business Action on Health Award in recognition of the technological and optimisation support they provide to North Star Alliance. ORTEC, who joined our network of partners in 2009, has played the primary role in the development of our electronic health passport and data management system, COMETS, which has greatly improved our capacity to deliver health care, access and track client health information, and track epidemiological trends on a local, national, and regional level.
The GBC Health Business Action on Health Awards recognise companies that exemplify a spirit of innovation and help set the agenda for addressing today’s most important global health challenges. The 2013 winning programs represent work from ORTEC, Pfizer, Procter & Gamble, GlaxoSmithKline, Hewlett-Packard Company, Levi Strauss & Co., Novartis, Freeport-McMoRan and Copper & Gold. ORTEC Consulting Group CEO Lambert van der Bruggen will accept the award in New York during GBC Health’s 2013 Conference, held May 15-17th.
“We were honored to be a finalist, but to win this award is a dream come true,” stated Lambert van der Bruggen, ORTEC Consulting Group CEO. “North Star Alliance came to us with this human crisis. Fortunately, optimisation techniques have many applications so we were able to create the COMETS health registration and passport system. In the field of humanitarian logistics this means reaching more people, saving more lives and strengthening communities globally.”
As part of our work to establish a network of drop-in health clinics along major transport corridors throughout Africa, ensuring our staff are able to access the medical records of mobile populations, like long distance truck drivers, is paramount. To accomplish this, we’ve worked with ORTEC and ORTEC Consulting Group to develop a customised client health registration and passport system, called COMETS. COMETS is easy to use for staff without advanced computer skills and is resilient to operational challenges like power outages and breaks in connectivity. Since 2009, ORTEC has provided this support on a pro-bono basis.
In addition to COMETS, ORTEC Consulting Group launched a new system in 2011 called POLARIS, which combines information from a wide range of sources including COMETS data, traffic flows, commodity flows, and costs to improve North Star’s planning and decision‐making on the ground. The system helps to ensure that future and existing clinics are strategically placed, and that the mix of health and safety services is optimal. In 2012 alone, our network of clinics saw 219,681 visits and each of these clients had their health information stored, monitored, and evaluated using COMETS.
“ORTEC Consulting Group has made a crucial contribution, not only toward improving our capacity to deliver and monitor health across our network of clinics, but toward a global capacity to monitor the health of some of Africa’s most hard-to-reach populations” says North Star Executive Director Luke Disney. “Their innovation and partnership is truly a core element of North Star’s success to date.”
From all of us at North Star Alliance, congratulations to the staff at ORTEC and ORTEC Consulting Group for this well-deserved recognition and thank you for your on-going support.
To view ORTEC’s Press Release visit: ORTEC Wins 2013 GBC Business Health Award for Humanitarian Logistics Optimization Throughout Africa
About ORTEC
ORTEC Consulting Group specialises in operations research and optimisation, using mathematical models to support a wide range of business decisions and analytical processes. Optimising revenue and supply chains, and providing advanced analytics across a wide range of data. ORTEC Consulting Group is a subsidiary of ORTEC, the world’s leading provider of optimisation software solutions and consulting services. ORTEC has over 1,650 customers worldwide, over 650 employees and offices in Europe, North America, Asia and the Pacific Region. For more information, visit ORTEC Consulting Group at http://www.ortec-consulting.com or ORTEC at http://www.ortec.com.
About GBC Health
GBCHealth represents over 200 private sector companies leading the business fight for improved global health. Through work that includes developing comprehensive workplace policies; supporting community programs; leveraging core competencies; facilitating leadership and advocacy by business leaders; and brokering public-private partnerships, GBCHealth helps members achieve their global health goals. GBCHealth also manages the private sector delegation to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, serving as an entry-point for corporate collaboration and engagement with the Fund and its recipients worldwide. GBCHealth has offices in New York, Johannesburg, Beijing, and Nairobi. For more information on GBCHealth, please visit www.gbchealth.org
About North Star Alliance
North Star Alliance (North Star) is a not-for-profit public-private partnership that works at the crossroads of health and mobility. Our mission is to provide sustainable access to quality health and safety services to mobile workers and related communities. We harness the energies of more than 70 public, private and social partners to stop the spread of disease by establishing a network of strategically located clinics, called Roadside Wellness Centres, across Africa. Visit North Star Alliance online at: http://www.northstar-alliance.org. To view a mini-documentary click here: http://www.northstar-alliance.org/crossroadsdocumentary/.
Photo Courtesy of Dave Chidley
