Code for Baltimore, the volunteer coding brigade with a focus on civic innovation, recently launched a customer management tool for the Baltimore City Health Department that officials said saved hundreds of hours in human effort.

The program automates the process of contacting senior living facilities through email and eventually text. It sends a survey, and has been used to assess the needs of elderly communities during the pandemic. Before this program, a health department employee would spend hours cold calling facilities.

“This tool gives us the ability to reach out to 500-plus facilities in an instant,” said Molly Martin, assistant commissioner with the Baltimore City Health Department’s division of aging. “It really fills the gap of being able to respond to vulnerable populations in a quick manner, which was something that we couldn’t do before despite every effort to do so.”

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