The Indian Health Service (IHS) provides funding for rural Alaskan infrastructure, including water, sewer, and solid waste. For several years, IHS had used an internally developed desktop application, the Sanitation Tracking and Reporting System (STARS), to identify infrastructure deficiencies, detail potential solutions, and cost, fund, and manage associated construction projects.

GeoNorth began work with IHS and the Alaska Native Regional Health Consortium (ANTHC) to convert this system to an online application, web-based Sanitation Tracking and Reporting System (wSTARS). Included in this conversion were significant functional improvements and integration with a related ANTHC application, Rural Alaska Housing Sanitation Inventory (RAHSI). Additional functionality was added, and wSDS was rolled out to three additional IHS regions. wSDS was put into use for all twelve IHS regions and work was begun on the web-based Project Data System (wPDS), the module for funding identified projects, and tracking funded projects. Highlights include:

• Modular architecture, using Fusebox 4 and ColdFusion MX, has facilitated maximum reuse of components originally created for other IHS and ANTHC applications
• Workflow and history functionality provide auditing and accountability
• Automated synchronization with other applications, external to IHS, via web services

Since nationwide deployment of wSTARS, GeoNorth has worked with IHS to integrate the functionality previously provided by other separate, external applications. During 2005 the Operations and Maintenance Data System (OMDS) functionality was added to wSTARS and in 2006 the Housing Information Tracking System (HITS) functionality was added. Each of these projects required several months to complete and included requirements gathering, clickable prototype development, and usability testing with a focus group to arrive at an application that met the functional requirements of all twelve IHS areas. Once the prototype was approved, each application was architected and developed by GeoNorth as a tightly integrated component of the overall wSTARS web application, sharing a common database. Webex online meetings, regularly scheduled conference calls, and a parallel test environment facilitated soliciting and incorporating feedback from stakeholders nationwide during the implementation process.