Artificial intelligence and medicine are saving lives. In times of pandemic, mobile applications and tools facilitate early detection of covid-19.
Public institutions and technology companies are focused on protecting the health of the citizens of the world. To prevent the spread of covid-19 and provide timely assistance, they took on the challenge of developing systems that identify and alert citizens who have symptoms or have interacted with positive cases.
These tools offer services such as virus exposure alerts, symptom recording, access to recommendations, and interaction with health professionals. These developments based on artificial intelligence, which revolutionize the concept of collaborative information, are setting a precedent in the use of technology for medical purposes:
CoronaMadrid: the application created by the Community of Madrid, compatible with Android and IOS operating systems, allows citizens to self-assess their state of health to identify suspicious cases and receive care from the health authorities. After registering the symptoms, Corona Madrid issues recommendations and instructions, some of them designed for people who live with positive cases. This App is supported on the website www.coronamadriv.com .
The fact: on Google Play it has been downloaded by more than 50,000 people and on the App Store it is the 36th application in the medicine category.
David19: the innovation laboratory of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and IOVLabs, a technology services company, created this application with the purpose of collaboratively sharing information about covid-19 without jeopardizing the privacy of users, who have the option of uploading data about their health and travel during the quarantine. The sum of all the information creates an interactive map that allows knowing the expansion of this disease and directing governments to refocus their social distancing strategies.
The fact: The future of this application is to be part of the channels for attention to possible health emergencies, for example those related to climate change.
Exposure notifications: Apple and Google are developing an API for their devices that will issue alerts when people are close to a positive case. Although the button is already available, this set of protocols and tools needs a series of applications that support them, which are expected to be developed in the coming months.
The fact: This API can be activated or deactivated at any time and does not collect personal information. In addition, it allows you to connect Android and IOS operating systems.
CoronApp: This application developed by the National Digital Agency of Colombia has a double purpose: to create a map that shows the real state of the spread of covid-19 in the country and to make it easier for citizens to monitor their symptoms, receive recommendations and know the location of the health centers to which they can access. The data collected is monitored in real time by the National Institute of Health.
The fact: this App compatible with Android and IOS systems does not consume data in prepaid and postpaid plans.
This set of applications and tools facilitate early detection and access to true information, updated in real time. Although there have been some bugs, developers are called to update them frequently, based on the information provided by citizens, to create a better user experience.