Re: Platform for Crowdsourced data for COVID treatment?
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David A. Rice
Hi Siobhan, this Friday, in partnership with one of Nigeria's most prominent philanthropists in healthcare, my company, PocketPatientMD, is launching a suite of free COVID-19 digital health tools.? Her Foundation is kicking-off a national campaign to engage large numbers?of people (our focus is primarily in Africa) in the fight against coronavirus.? There are 5 tools (all free), but the one we think is most-needed is the COVID-19 Health Checker, summarized below. COVID-19 Health Checker and Early Warning System The scarcity of tests, the time required to get results, the anticipated influx of requests for tests, and the danger of transmission when people overwhelm health facilities with unnecessary requests, coupled with the importance of rapid testing to limit outbreaks, requires a special solution. Citizens should be asked to complete the COVID Health Checker, which in just a few questions will determine where there are clusters of high-risk citizens based on age, location, underlying health conditions, current symptoms (if any), and current status (e.g. self-monitoring, quarantine, remotely monitored, etc). ? People completing the checker can choose to provide their name and contact number if they wish, but can also complete the checker and remain anonymous (only their location is known). The more people that answer all of the questions in the checker, the more relevant information public health officials will have about vulnerable populations and hot spots where an outbreak may already be underway.? This will help them respond quickly and with a targeted and proactive intervention to preserve resources since the results will be heat maps based on aggregate responses. The key to success for this tool is massive, widespread completion of the checker by as many citizens as possible.? To encourage citizens to complete the checker, mobile phone companies have been asked to send out an announcement regarding the checker and offer those customers who complete it with 500mb of free data as an incentive.? In the absence of testing, this is the most efficient and reliable way to get data critical to determining where a potential outbreak is happening or could happen to a vulnerable population. Since resources are scarce, using them in a way that allows officials to target priority areas is key. I look forward to your thoughts. David On Wed, Apr 1, 2020 at 10:44 PM Siobhan Green <sio@...> wrote:
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