How government agencies can leverage Power BI in the time of crisis

How government agencies are leveraging Power BI in the time of crisis

How government agencies are leveraging Power BI in the time of crisis
Author : Anshita Solanki   Posted :

What was your new year’s resolution before the pandemic struck the whole world? Halfway through the year, the universal motto for the year 2020 is staying alert, staying at home, and staying safe. Governments are trying innovative ways to help their citizens during the coronavirus pandemic. Sharing accurate information on the current situation and providing necessary medical aid in the affected areas have become the utmost priorities.

In this need of the hour, different technological advancements have helped businesses, government agencies and individuals to fight the situation together. One such tool offered by Microsoft, Power BI, has helped several government bodies in various ways. Power BI dashboards for government operations help officials and citizens to see the current situation and prepare for better management.

Firstly, let’s have a brief understanding of what exactly Power BI has to offer.

Power BI capabilities

Microsoft Power BI is a tool that helps you turn data into visuals so you can make better decisions quickly. This analytics tool lets businesses get insights into their operations and helps government offices during times of global crisis. With the Power BI dashboard, you can access and share information in real-time, anywhere, at any time.

Why Power BI dashboards for government operations

If there’s one resource that government has in abundance, it’s data. However, most government agencies are flooded with paper stacks. Data piles’ usability is proportional to the ability to process them.

According to different marketing research agencies, organizations across industries use less than half of their structured data to make decisions. Analysts spend much of their time finding and preparing data rather than using it in meaningful ways.

The question is how to overcome these obstacles using data and serve various utility agencies and residents. The one-word answer for such a problem is Power BI dashboards.

Power BI dashboards are a powerful tool for visualizing massive amounts of data pulled from different resources. Power BI dashboards retrieve data from connected databases. Such data dashboards track, capture, analyze and visualize your key performance indicators. Power BI dashboards display information in near real-time, so you don’t have to wait for reports as often.

Using Power BI dashboards, government agencies can efficiently process data. This technology helps agencies see patterns and identify problems to improve their processes and make them more efficient. Consequently, people can make better, faster and more effective decisions.

Here are some pointers on how leveraging Power BI in government agencies can help with data analysis and visualization.

Enabling Power BI services for government agencies

The increased demand for medical care during the current global pandemic is evident. However, healthcare services are not the only things citizens need to provide. It is important to share information so governments and citizens can make the right decisions and prevent being overwhelmed.

With the Power BI toolkit, governments can quickly publish updated information regarding the current scenario of respective affected areas. Power BI Desktop and Power BI Publish to Web are great data tracking tools for government agencies.

Enabling frontline workers

With automated screening, healthcare practitioners can get alerts and notifications regarding their patients. Healthcare providers can also use Power BI for assessing symptoms. Hospitals and designated test labs can import and visualize data from disparate sources using Power BI. That way, it makes instant access to care of patients efficient.

Enabling frontline workers

With automated screening, healthcare practitioners can get alerts and notifications regarding their patients. Healthcare providers can also use Power BI for assessing symptoms. Hospitals and designated test labs can import and visualize data from disparate sources using Power BI. That way, it makes instant access to care of patients efficient.

With Power BI, doctors and other medical staff can get a 360-degree view of their emergency supplies. Let’s take an example of the current COVID-19 scenario.

Interactive Power BI dashboards help people see near real-time data on things like available beds and supplies of ventilators and masks. Frontline workers can use their mobile phones to check their inventory levels anytime. Additionally, pharmaceutical companies can use Power BI to keep frontline workers updated on the availability of medicines and supplies. This solution can help improve productivity.

Using Power BI to share crucial information with communities

Power BI reporting enables citizens with factual data visualization to better understand and equip them for the situation ahead. Power BI dashboard can present communities with information like:

  • Confirmed cases
  • Total casualties
  • Total recovered
  • Areas affected the most
  • Green zone areas with no cases

The report mentioned below is an in-depth visualization of the COVID-19 scenario created by Softweb Solutions:

In this case, the Power BI dashboards visualize the virus’s progression in a particular area, city, or state population. Also, citizens can get detailed demographics of those affected and stay alerted if they fall under the same demographics.

Use of Power BI in local government agencies:

  • Microsoft is working with USAFacts to make it easy for citizens to access the data provided by USAFacts through a Power BI report.
  • The Victorian Department of Health & Human Services in south-eastern Australia uses Azure and Power BI to create reports and share their local information quickly.
  • In India, Govt. of Punjab rolled out COVA, an app for its citizen that offers real-time information on COVID-19.

Tackling the crisis with Power BI

Government agencies and non-profit organizations are currently handling large amounts of dynamic data. Many are already leveraging Power BI to share insights on COVID-19 with communities. With easy-to-understand maps and dashboards, governments can provide detailed information on the current situation to avoid panic among the public.

Contact our Power BI experts to know more about how Power BI provides communities with seamless data intelligence and visualization.

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