(ABC 6 News) — Zumbro Valley Medical Society is partnering with the PathCheck Foundation to create an online platform to facilitate care between health care and social service providers.

The platform will serve the unhoused population in Rochester and will help providers and agencies communicate and provide the best care possible.

Delays in this communication can be an obstacle for those experiencing homelessness to overcome while trying to secure housing.

It’s an obstacle the platform, called Opal, is setting out to fix.

“We want to put the burden on the system, rather than on the individual,” Beth Kangas, executive director of ZVMS, said.

Opal would give providers a space to communicate and quickly coordinate care, which is something Collin Johnson said would have sped up the process when he was experiencing homelessness.

“It would have sped up the process a lot in the end. It would’ve put everyone on the same page instead of everyone just kind of wandering in limbo,” Johnson said.

The platform was created with the help of the TABLE, a group of advisors that have w=experienced homelessness, which Johnson is a co-founder of.

Creators of the platform are aiming to have the first version of it launched by the end of this year. Rochester will serve as a pilot for the program, with the goal of expanding to other areas later on.