An exclusive app for Covid patients

Two decades ago, we recommended to a world leader in manufacturing baby nappies that they should launch a website for pregnant women, which will guide them through pregnancy – step by step – so that when the baby is born, the mother will trust and buy the company’s nappies. The point is simple. A first-time mother is anxious about her health during pregnancy and she needs a lot of resources to read and understand to reduce her anxiety and she must connect with recent mothers to receive positive support during and after pregnancy. Today Pampers and many others operate exclusive sites for guiding pregnant women – step by step.

Similarly, the moment you are diagnosed Covid positive, your anxiety goes through the roof. Your physical contact with your immediate family is stopped instantly and you are quarantined. You start visualising worst case scenarios. You start visiting the web and, unfortunately, the media is full of doomsday scenarios and this aggravates anxiety.

On the other hand, there are a lot of complaints on realtime and reliable data on Covid patients. Government data is delayed and is often accused of under-reporting. We are unable to predict hospitalisation and need for oxygen beds and don’t have a way of preventing unwanted patients from crowding hospitals. We desperately need a new approach to solve these problems.

Covid Apps are Piecemeal

WebMD is a repository on many health issues and I found many apps for tracing symptoms, tracking, monitoring BP, disease prevalence apps, telemedicine apps, etc. The government of India has apps like Aarogya Setu and CoWIN to contain the disease and track vaccination. Jotform in Feb launched a patient data app for health providers to collect and manage data from patients. Thus there are many apps to meet the objectives of the launching organisation, but all of them are piecemeal. There is none from the standpoint of the Covid patient.

Exclusive App

We need an app (I am calling this as MYLIFE App) for the exclusive use of Covid patients. Its objectives must be:
⁃ Guide patient during the period of Covid illness with latest information and, more importantly, on action items
⁃ Remind, push and cajole patient to follow recommended actions and record them
⁃ Provide positive motivation during the quarantine period
⁃ Connect all relevant, latest and authentic resources required during illness
⁃ Capture key patient and treatment-related data for research and predictive analytics
⁃ Centralise and get realtime data for policy analysis

Data that can be captured by the app for day-by-day action:

⁃ Personal and demographic profile, including age, gender, income, immediate family, location, pin code, contact details, along with Aadhaar and contact validation
⁃ Consulting doctor details
⁃ Pre-existing co-morbidities
⁃ Symptoms
⁃ Vaccination details
⁃ Details of Covid diagnostic reports
⁃ Details of home treatment recommended
⁃ Daily tracking data like oxygen levels, BP
⁃ Actual treatment undertaken details
⁃ Expenses details
⁃ Hospitalisation details
⁃ Any other details from standpoint of research and policymaking

Why would a patient fill it?

The patient will fill it only if it is of use during illness, and the data is used immediately for giving customised advice. The patient will fill in data because the app will do the following:

⁃ Give personalised regime of homecare – day by day based on co-morbidities
⁃ Set reminders and cajole patient to follow the daily treatment regime like steam inhalation, oximeter measurement, and ensure realtime recording
⁃ Automatically escalate to the doctor if the tracking parameters are out of line
⁃ Provide latest authentic information on treatment to consulting doctor and patient
⁃ Connect patient with key resources required during home isolation like drugs, home-delivered food, doctor and psychologist counsellor
⁃ Connect home isolation patient with volunteers from recovered patients of similar profile for motivational support
⁃ Guide caretakers and children of patients on what they should do
⁃ Share top 10 positive recovery stories, every day
⁃ Maintain a tracker of all key information and organise the same – for easy use of doctors during treatment
⁃ Help patient track treatment expenses and make insurance claims
⁃ Help patient identify “overcharges” on any account, including doctor fee, medicine and hospitalisation – by comparing with data submitted by other app users
⁃ Guide on how to manage time during isolation, including appropriate exercises
In short, the app will be a patient’s friend, guide, mentor, consultant and record keeper during the toughest period in one’s life.

Policymaking and Research

What we lack now is realtime accurate data on Covid patients for policy-making and research. This app data can be useful for:
⁃ Active caseload monitoring – pin code wise, age group wise and other demographics wise to link hospitals and doctors to patient
⁃ Prediction of hospitalisation and oxygen and critical care based on disease progression data of patients
⁃ Maximising homecare treatment with right and timely inputs
⁃ Getting valuable research data on disease correlations with co-morbidities and other factors during home isolation; on actual treatment in hospitals
⁃ Communicating right and timely information with caregivers
⁃ Will help in higher motivation and compliance of patients during home isolation and reduce hospitalisation

Can it be Done?

Yes. Because we have seen large-scale centralised apps like CoWIN and Aarogya Setu succeed. In addition, there are apps for food delivery and medicine tracking already in use. The lacuna is the lack of an integrated app where data is filled in by patients themselves — for their own reasons. It can be an independent source to validate data from government sources.

Role of Government

The government of India need not create this app. Large IT companies can create this app quickly. It can be managed by private entities like the FICCI. But the government must popularise this actively and use its data to cross-validate the data coming from other sources.