Pandemic Solutions Group

GOAL: In May of 2020, The Rockefeller Foundation created the Testing Solutions Group to facilitate the exchange of best practices for public health authorities and officials working to scale up pandemic preparedness and response with an immediate focus on Covid-19 testing and tracing. Beginning in January 2021, this learning group evolved into the Pandemic Solutions Group (PSG). While topics related to frequent and widespread testing remained a priority for this group, this change reflected The Foundation’s commitment to helping public officials navigate the intersecting demands of testing, vaccination, and other public health measures in the months ahead.

How it works

The Rockefeller Foundation convened the Group every two weeks to:

Peer Network:
• Drive collaboration about promising initiatives at both the state and local levels
• Engage directly with technical experts and colleagues
• Facilitate the exchange of on-the-ground challenges and real-time solutions associated with testing, vaccination, and related pandemic response topics

Knowledge Products:
• Package the insights shared through the Pandemic Solutions Group (PSG)
• Develop strategy and policy recommendations that support government officials and other community leaders and their leadership teams.

Learning:
• Support public officials and other community leaders to collect real-time data, evidence, and feedback to improve strategies.

The Centre for Public Impact – a non-profit, non-partisan organization founded by Boston Consulting Group to reimagine government – provided oversight and support as the Pandemic Solutions Group’s Secretariat.

Participants:

1. Public Health Leaders: The PSG convened participants across levels of government and sectors. Examples of attendees included, but were not limited to, state public health department directors, city chief innovation officers, executives of community and non-profit organizations, and others.
2. Invited Experts: Technical experts and nationally recognized public health officials such as Dr. Francis Collins, and Dr. Helene Gayle met with the PSG to share knowledge and help answer real-time questions from participants as they responded to community needs.

Previous sessions covered topics ranging from strategies to reopen K-12 schools to practical lessons from antigen testing implementation to community-driven strategies for equitable vaccination.