Press Release
Telangana Govt. Deploys ‘Vera’s - COVID -19 Monitoring System’ – India’s First Real-time Technology to Intensify Centralised COVID Surveillance
Every single device connected with the Vera Platform held by the ASHA ANM worker screens 75 – 100 houses per day.
Vera COVID 19 centralised Monitoring System empowers health callers to handle 50,000 calls / Simple Chat Bot interaction per month, to trace and Geotag COVID Contacts across Hotspots, Covering 33 Districts of Telangana.
Hyderabad, India, April 06, 2020: In a major COVID-19 pandemic Public Health initiative, the Public Health and Family Welfare Department, Govt of Telangana, invested swiftly to deploy India’s first automated “COVID – 19 Monitoring System App” by Vera Smart Healthcare to identify, undertake live surveillance, track, monitor, and provide real-time analytics to Chief Minister and the Health Department.
“COVID – 19 Monitoring System App”, developed in a record time to deal with the pandemic, enables live surveillance, monitoring, tracking, reporting, and major bulletins. The analytics by the app also facilitate assurance to the stakeholders by providing the facts and figures in their fingertips.
The system empowers each health-caller to handle 1500+ calls, and simple chatbot interaction every day with a patient, to ensure that the symptomatic or confirmed ‘positive’, quarantined and is under treatment, helping to strengthen the COVID contacts outreach significantly. The callers will also persuade and remind the patient to self-administer the prescribed treatment, to maintain social distancing, as well as give a reminder to stay home and stay safe.
This user-friendly app is developed by the US and Hyderabad based, early stage start-up Vera Smart Healthcare, which had earlier helped Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Tamil Nadu, to create detailed health profiles for more than 50000 people across these 3 states in a record number of days.
Vera has introduced the first-ever mobile hospital in India to help increase healthcare accessibility in rural areas covering most of the Indian villages. The company focuses on building smart hospitals in India along with its technology partner Fellow.
Announcing the successful deployment of Vera’s COVID – 19 Monitoring System App, Director of Public Health Dr. G Srinivas Rao, for COVID surveillance, commended Vera Smart Healthcare expertise to handle COVID surveillance complexities, understand the protocol, and developing the technology platform in a record of 3 days.
The system has helped us first, track and monitor the foreign returnees; community spread and already hospitalised for severe acute respiratory infection (SARS) very early to control spread of COVID pandemic in the state.”
“Vera Centralised COVID Monitoring System is a timely technology innovation, eased the pain off by effective surveillance, and deploy a meticulous tech-enabled method to collate vital data, at the click of a button empowering active associates across the state, from the hierarchical polity to bureaucracy to the front line ASHA & ANM workers, to make COVID – 19, a history.” Dr. Srinivas stated
“The Monitoring System which is built on a digital platform, erases human errors, and provides accurate information. The quick turnaround, and the innovative psyche, has initiated improved surveillance, tracking – effective monitoring, and supervision.” Dr. Srinivas added.
Explaining its benefits, Dharma Teja Nukarapu, Founder and CEO of Vera Healthcare stated “Our technology is based on IoT, Smart devices, GPS and Geotag via a super lite centralized App – COVID – 19 Monitoring System, which is installed in the phones of all associates from the ground level till the Chief Minister’s Office. The system was built by Vera in record time. Every stakeholder got comprehensive training on using the App.”
“Among the vital feature of the app is Geotagging and GPS tracking of the home quarantined person, to ensure that he/she is not breeching the law of quarantine. With instant trace and trackability, accurate information is pushed to the authorities even if there is a breach. Every detail reported – reaches the Chief Minister’s Office through various updaters like the ASHA worker, Doctor, Police, concerned Bureaucrat.”
“Vera Healthcare is now readying to release a batch of “SMART PATCH” which tags the patient geographically, monitors and disseminates his / her real-time health progress” Dharma Teja added.
COVID -19 Monitoring System – Touch Points
ASHA and ANM worker - at the frontline. At any given point of time, around 1500-2000 of these workers use the App. A total of more than 5000 ASHA ANM workers are involved, and are using the App to identify, register, track, monitor and report the health condition of the patients who are home quarantined for symptoms.
PHC sub-center - Around 4800 in number, receive data from the ASHA workers, push them to the next level.
PHC - Public Health Centre, 886 in the state, flows out the data to the District Medical Health Office.
DMHO - the officer-in-charge takes charge of the situation in the respective districts by following the concerned hierarchical officer at the Health Department, to whom the data is transmitted.
Your Story
The Public Health and Family Welfare Department of the Government of Telangana announced that it has deployed India’s first automated COVID-19 Monitoring System App. The application, developed by Vera Smart Healthcare, will be used to identify, undertake live surveillance, track, monitor, and provide real-time analytics to the Chief Minister and the Health Department of the state.
“Among the vital features of the app is Geotagging and GPS tracking of the home quarantined persons, to ensure that they are not breaching the law of quarantine. With instant trace and trackability, accurate information is pushed to the authorities, when there is a breach. Every detail reported reaches the Chief Minister’s office through various updates including ASHA workers, doctors, police, and concerned bureaucrats,” Dharma Teja Nukarapu, Founder and CEO of Vera, tells YourStory.
Vera’s technology is based on IoT (internet of things), smart devices, GPS, and Geotag, via the centralised monitoring system application. The application is installed in the phones of people working on the ground, to the Chief Minister’s office. Additionally, all stakeholders have been given comprehensive training on using the app.
Dharma Tehja Nukarapu, Founder and CEO of Vera Smart Healthcare
Dr G Srinavas Rao, Director of Public Health said,
“Vera’s Centralised COVID-19 Monitoring System is timely technology innovation. It has eased the pain by providing effective surveillance, and deploying a meticulous tech-enabled method to collate vital data, at the click of a button. Thus, empowering active associates across the state, from hierarchical polity to bureaucracy, to the front line ASHA and ANM works, to make COVID-19, a history.”
Genesis of the startup
Vera Smart Healthcare was founded eight months ago, after it branched out from the 2016-founded North Carolina-based company Fellow Healthtech. Headquartered in the US, Vera also has an office in Hyderabad.
Dharma, who holds a Masters degree in Computer Science from Wichita State University, had previously founded Shark Dreams, which was later renamed as Fellow Healthtech.
Vera’s services include smart hospitals or mobile hospitals, “Which are designed and developed by Vera ensuring care follows the patient, rather being the other way,” says Dharma. It reaches patients in rural India through its door-to-door services, mobile, remote, home and camp services, and ensures access to healthcare facilities.
“Our screening time for a patient is less than a minute,” he adds.
Vera is focused on health empowerment and its “ambition is to bring healthcare access to everyone equally, irrespective of economical and physical challenges,” says Dharma. All its services are technology-oriented.
It is also set to roll out mobile clinics with ventilator support so that those who are quarantined in rural India, if and when tested positive, can be immediately shifted to a remote isolation bus, instead of travelling to a tertiary healthcare facility in the city.
How does the app work?
The COVID-19 monitoring app was developed in three days. The app will empower health callers to handle more than 1,500 plus calls every day. It also has an in-built chatbot to enable interactions with the patients, enabling the state to remain updated about the symptomatic, or confirmed positive cases, the number of citizens quarantined, and are under treatment. Callers will also persuade and remind patients to self-administer the prescribed treatment, and maintain social distancing.
“The Monitoring System which is built on a digital platform, erases human errors, and provides accurate information. The quick turnaround and the innovative psyche has initiated improved surveillance, tracking, effective monitoring, and supervision,” Srinivas added.
Vera is also preparing to release a batch of ‘Smart Patch’. The Smart Patch tags COVID-19 patients geographically, monitoring them and disseminating their real-time health progress.
The Monitoring System
The COVID-19 Monitoring System deployed by the Government of Telangana will be accessible and used by the following stakeholders:
ASHA and ANM workers who are at the frontline of fighting this pandemic. At any given point of time, up to 2,000 of ASHA and ANM workers will be using the applications. In totality, 5,000 ASHA and ANM workers are involved and are using the app to identify, register, track, monitor and report the health condition of the patients who are home quarantined for showing symptoms of COVID-19.
The 4,800 Primary Healthcare Sub-Center, which would be receiving data from the ASHA workers and pushing them to the next level.
886 Primary Healthcare Centers in the state, who would take the data from the sub-centres and push them to the District Medical Health Office.
The officer-in-charge of the District Medical Health Office will take charge of the situation in their respective districts, by following the concerned hierarchical Officer at the Health Department, to whom the data is transmitted.
The web application developed by Vera will not be released for public use. Available for free, it can run on any web device which need not be a high-end smartphone. According to the founder, the app is currently being used by approximately 20,000 government authorised personnel.
