Telangana Adopts Covid-19 App To Make Healthcare Access Easier

To make lives easier for citizens in the state, the Telangana government has adopted a COVID-19 Monitoring System App to bring remote consultation service to even rural regions. The app not only helps the government in keeping tabs on those suspected of being infected with coronavirus but also allows authorities to effectively answer any health-related queries in local languages.

To start off with, the app claims to support take over 1,500 calls and chatbot interactions with patients every day. The government estimates that it would easily allow telecallers to take up 50K calls in a month, helping the state strengthen its outreach. Meanwhile, the app also allows local authorities to monitor, track, report and send out major bulletins to the users.

Telangana’s chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao’s office is also using the app to keep a tab on the situation. The app, developed by US and Hyderabad-based startup Vera Smart Healthcare, also allows the state officials to get the real-time location of the people who have been advised to stay under quarantine.

G Srinivas Rao, director of public health in the Telangana government, elaborated that the government has used the app to monitor and track the foreign returnees, community spread, and people who have already been tested positive. Besides this, the product has allowed the government to effectively tackle the surveillance complexities and understanding the protocol.

The company, with the help of its technology partner Fellow, managed to create the app in three days. “Our technology is based on IoT, Smart devices, GPS and Geotag via a super lite centralised App, which is installed in the phones of all associates from the ground level till the Chief Minister’s Office,” said Teja Nukarapu, Founder and CEO of Vera Smart Healthcare.

Similarly, an Assam-based mobility startup ParkingRhino has developed a similar app to keep a tab on people suspected to be infected with COVID-19. The app uses GPS, mobile cell network and the internet to give real-time specifications to the local authorities.

The company realises that the app would fall short in case the person decides to leave their smartphone at home. So, the company has incorporated a feature that makes it mandatory for the users to upload a selfie at regular intervals. The selfies is sent to local authorities, along with the location every hour.

Even the Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka government have incorporated such solutions to keep their problems at bay. Andhra Pradesh government’s COVID Alerting Tracking System allows it to keep track of over 25K individuals advised to self-quarantine. The app relies on the database associated with the mobile numbers of such people. Meanwhile, the telecom companies in Andhra Pradesh are also helping the government by providing the list of the last 15 locations a person had visited before being tested positive. As per an India Today report, the government of Telangana, Bihar, and Odisha are also looking to incorporate these tools as their tracking system.