Coronavirus: How Data And Technology Is Used To Fight The Pandemic
Covid19 is breaking down the world , dominating global headlines.
Governments are managing political responses on impact of the virus and imposing policies. With cases around the world, doubling every 3 days, it is expected that 50% of world population will be infected in 82 days, if nothing is done now.
Action speaks louder than words, but it requires evidence via data and science. Meaningful data comes from amalgamation of all the data sources, for that eHealth database, which helps government make an informed decision.
Such eHealth database requires tests results, locations of confirmed positive cases, treatment results, evolving case definitions, tracing the patients travel history against locations of confirmed positive cases, and many other systems that must be as interoperable as possible with privacy & security in mind.
It is crucial for the following reasons:
1. Each person is categorized into various risk levels depending on their travel history
- The travel history and flight information can be retrieved from through the usage of FDX (Fligh Data eXchange) , PNR (Passenger Name Record)
- This avoids dishonest patients from infecting the frontline medical workers
- Different travel risk patients can be managed differently
2. Each hospitals data should pumped into a centralized database for retrievel at any Emergency Care
- Every region (district, state, nation) should implement a Regional Health Information Organization (RHIO) which is a group of organizations within a specific area that share healthcare-related information electronically
- Such RHIO, usually enables an establishment of a national Health Information Exchange (HIE) - which are the data warehouse of a nation's health data.
- FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) is as a common data standards for establishment of such a RHIO and further leading to a HIE.
3. Everyone should be a running a Contact Tracing App
- Beyond medical records and travel history, the data should be interoperable in such a way that contact tracing against Covid19 positive patients (school, workplace, family, friends, gathering, etc) should be possible,
- In similiar way how Google tracks road traffic, when we are on the road, the app should be able to trace our movement and gathering
- While this can be against freedom of movement and privacy laws, it should be activated during a crisis as such Covid19
While all the above sounds impossible to be implemented, the fact is that such eHealth technology and tools are already available. This was one of the major reason why South Korea was able to bring down the rapid cases of Covid19 there, through meaningful data and track trace technology available for the government to use. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/24427053_The_e-Health_Landscape_Current_Status_and_Future_Prospects_in_Korea
It is upto the political will of the governments of the world to implement policies which helps to enforce them. Most policies are designed to drive the economics and financial of a country, and less importance is given to the tecnology advancement of public health. It is time we wake up and realize that Health is truly our Wealth.
1 : https://www.iata.org/contentassets/fbd10b5498854f22a1d099525dabbf0e/fdx-faq.pdf
2 : https://www.iata.org/en/publications/api-pnr-toolkit/
3 : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_Health_Information_Organization
4 : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_information_exchange
5 : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_Healthcare_Interoperability_Resources