For an entire generation of people the experience of living during a pandemic is entirely new and naturally there is no dearth of panic reactions followed by a barrage of misinformation. The widespread misinformation circulating around the web and social media platforms about the novel coronavirus has had destructive effects on the consumption of information in many ways.
At the same time, apart from the spread of such misconceptions and hoax narratives, a lot of useful and informative resources are also there on the web and on mobile platforms that people can access freely. These resources include some relevant applications to keep track of the COVID-19 spread, apps to get remote access to healthcare and apps for contact tracing. Below we have provided a short list of these useful and relevant apps to help people during Covid-19 pandemic.
DocClocker
DocClocker is an app that provides assistance to patients about real-time wait-time reporting of their healthcare providers. That means the app works to prevent the spread of the virus by just helping patients to stay clear of the long queues in medical waiting rooms. Such apps are extremely useful in minimising the exposure to the virus as maintaining physical distance is crucial to prevent the spread of the disease.
Medici Healthcare Mobile App
The Medici Healthcare app allows patients to connect with healthcare professionals and doctors on the Medici network. The actual objective of the app is to eliminate the hassle and cost of visiting a hospital by providing online consultancy to users while reducing physical contacts to a minimum.
Outbreak Monitoring Platform from Orion Health
The outbreak monitoring platform from Orion Health can remotely monitor and engage patients right in their homes. The app does this simply by facilitating communication between people who are quarantined or isolated and the healthcare service. The app also helps in maintaining visibility and tracing the patients who have recently been discharged. To do all this the app uses artificial intelligence that helps healthcare professionals to identify patients whose conditions are likely to deteriorate over time.
Interactive dashboards
The Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University recently came up with an interactive, web dashboard that can keep track of real-time data about confirmed coronavirus cases, deaths, and recoveries for all the people in countries affected around the world.
This web dashboard tracks multiple data sources to provide specific information about new cases of coronavirus. Various data sources include multiple Twitter feeds, online news services, and data fetched by direct communication. Before updating the data in the dashboard, researchers consult and confirm the same with organizations like the CDC, the CDC from China (CCDC), the World Health Organization (WHO), and various public health authorities and credible organisations at the state-level.
The Medical Futurist online dashboard from Johns Hopkins University is one of the most credible and reliable sources of latest information regarding the pandemic. This dashboard works by aggregating data from various trusted sources. The dashboard offers an interactive map that displays precise and in-depth information about active, recovered and still fatal cases from countries around the world.
Microsoft came up with an interactive Bing map featuring a detailed map of Covid-19 cases along with the related news.
It fetches information from various sources such as the CDC and WHO. Though it doesn’t come with the most timely updates, Bing’s map is useful in getting an overall, general idea about the current situation.
COVID-19 Quarantine Dashboards
The U.K government built a similar COVID-19 dashboard featuring detailed information on reported cases, new cases and Covid-19 deaths in various territories within the country.
There are other useful resources like Google’s own COVID-19 Information & Resources website. Google provides just a one-stop-window for accessing all information related to COVID-19. Besides providing information about the disease and specific data about the spread, the website also informs you about the best protective measures and ways to cope with the lockdown.
Telemedicine: Solutions for Primary Care at home
Many of us are stuck at home and require healthcare service for regular health needs, but we don’t want to risk virus exposure by going to the hospital. This is where digital solutions can play a role by bringing the hospital to our homes. That’s exactly what telemedicine is all about. Telemedicine solutions are experiencing huge demand during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Even just a few months ago, the telemedicine concept was only popular in a handful of countries like Rwanda and Kazakhstan where remote access to healthcare was always a necessity. But as the need to provide healthcare to people while keeping medical personnel and patients safe from the contagion became necessary, remote consultation and telemedicine solutions started to become popular. For example, telemedicine appointments in PlushCare went up by 70%. Another major service called Amwell experienced a staggering increase of 158% in the U. S. from the time the country became severely affected by the pandemic.
You can now find a plethora of such apps out there but a few of them stand out for their excellent professional services. Some solutions like Lemonade provide both remote medical consultations and medicine delivery, helping people to access healthcare service from right within their home. For checking COVID-19 symptoms, you have an online Coronavirus Checker from Emory University School of Medicine. With just a few screening questions, this online tool will help you assess all your health risks besides informing you about CDC recommendations.
Washyourlyrics
Washing hands frequently is the most common and important health advice from medical professionals and experts. Washyourlyrics is a solution which is built to create handwashing infographics using your favorite songs to make sure you wash your hands for a sustained duration. As per the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) washing hands for a minimum duration of 20 seconds is a credible way to prevent the coronavirus contagion from infecting you.
Donottouchyourface
“Don’t touch your face” is one of the most important health tips to follow to prevent the contagion from getting access to our bodies. Since hands while touching objects are most vulnerable to coming into contact with the contagion, touching your face with your hands can take the virus close to the inlets through which the virus can enter the body.
Donottouchyourface uses an effective machine-learning algorithm to track images of each individual user touching their face, and learns the habits of each person easily. It then notifies users whenever they touch their face by displaying a large red NO right on their mobile screen.
Conclusion
The pandemic is going to change many habits of people in both private and public places. Preventive healthcare and having access to remote healthcare will be more important than ever before. The above mentioned apps provide an example of how digital solutions are going to play a major role in the fight against Covid-19.
