Replacement of the Covid dashboard with a Switzerland-wide portal for notifiable diseases
We were commissioned to replace Switzerland’s Covid-19 dashboard, which was created during the pandemic, with a modular, future-oriented platform. With the “EPI Infoportal” project, we are gradually developing and implementing a web application for the BAG to monitor and display all communicable reportable diseases. The platform serves to inform the population and facilitates the daily work of various professional groups (epidemiologists, media professionals, authorities, cantonal doctors). Similar to the previous Covid-19 dashboard, the data is presented clearly and interactively on the new portal https://idd.bag.admin.ch and updated weekly.
The go-live took place at the beginning of November 2023 with the first diseases influenza, Covid-19 and respiratory viruses. Over the next few years, more than 50 additional notifiable diseases are to be added.
THE CHALLENGES
The Covid-19 dashboard created during the pandemic needed a future-oriented successor solution. The aim was to ensure that the figures for +50 communicable diseases could be mapped. It was important to address very different stakeholder groups in a targeted manner. Each of these target groups should - as outlined below - be able to find the information relevant to them as quickly and easily as possible and benefit from the platform individually:
- Population – Everyone should be able to quickly get an idea of the current epidemiological situation thanks to interactive, visualized statistics.
- Power User – Access to current, comprehensive data and statistics. Tool for journalists, researchers and authorities.
- Epidemiologists – Reduced workload for employees through automated data preparation and analysis processes and digitization of reports. Greater visibility and transparency of work results.
- BAG – Strengthening public awareness thanks to better availability of data and interactive visualization. Strengthening data leadership.
In accordance with Open Government Data, the requirement was that all data should be usable by third parties and linked to opendata.swiss. Complex graphic elements should also be usable on mobile devices. The new CI/CD Bund specifications had to be taken into account. In this context, the go-live of the new platform was planned as a pilot project to test the new federal website with a wide audience.
ABOUT BAG
As part of the Federal Department of Home Affairs, the Federal Office of Public Health (Bundesamt für Gesundheit BAG) is responsible for the health of the population, develops Swiss health policy and is committed to a long-term, efficient and affordable healthcare system.
The Prevention and Healthcare Directorate promotes prevention and the further development of healthcare. It creates the legal framework and develops new health policy strategies.
The Communicable Diseases Division monitors these diseases, publishes regular reports on the epidemiological situation, defines prevention and control strategies and implements them.
OUR APPROACH
Procedure
With the support of the UX specialists from our partner Maxomedia https://maxomedia.ch, we first collected the technical requirements and visualized them using a click dummy. This formed the basis for the technical implementation of the individual cards and charts. As there were delays in the provision of the cloud via the federal government's contracts, we created a temporary version of the WebApp for visualization and further improvement of the prototype, which could be operated locally as a standalone.
Parallel to the development of the WebApp, we worked with the BAG's data team to standardize the data format so that it could be used uniformly regardless of the disease and context. This laid the foundation for further expansion of the portal. The last step before the go-live was to optimize the CI/CD Bund for use on mobile devices.
Tech Stack
The decision was made to use the Microsoft Azure public cloud as the operating environment. As far as available, the highly integrated functions of Azure serverless are used.
- The WebApp was implemented using Angular.
- The D3.js library was used for the visualization.
- The APIs were programmed in JAVA on Spring Boot.
- PostgreSQL is used as the database.
- The texts and translations are maintained using Craft CMS.
- Microsoft Azure DevOps Services is used as the development and deployment environment.
Data
The data is periodically pushed onto the platform by the BAG's own data team. There they are freely available both in their original form and via API query: https://idd.bag.admin.ch/portal-data
The IDD API is documented using the Swagger UI and can be freely accessed at any time:
https://idd.bag.admin.ch/swagger-ui/api-doc.html
The access options are also published on opendata.swiss: https://opendata.swiss/de/organization/abteilung-uebertragbare-krankheiten
THE RESULT
On November 8, 2023, the new information portal on communicable diseases went live with information on Covid-19, influenza (= flu) and respiratory viruses. This successfully replaced the previous Covid-19 dashboard. The weekly seasonal flu report has also been replaced by the new situation assessment on the portal.
The new data format and the API were presented to data journalists in a targeted manner so that the media were able to create their publications on the new database shortly after the go-live. With the modular approach of the cards and charts and the standardized data format, a stable basis was put into production that will allow the BAG to add further transferable diseases in the coming months and provide the various target groups with the information relevant to them.
