New app tracks people who need COVID-19 testing

Graduate students from the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) have created a new app to identify which people need testing for COVID-19 infection, potentially saving time and resources for hospitals across the country.
 
Community-driven medical information app ENDCov – developed by students from AIM’s Master of Science in Innovation and Business – was launched on Friday.

The app enables prospective patients to answer a survey that follows the algorithm that medical practitioners use for triage of people with possible COVID-19 infection. It is now available for download at Google Play and will soon be available at App Store.

ENDCoV aims to help the Department of Health (DOH) and hospitals maximize their resources by enabling them to prioritize the patients in need of testing and immediate care. Through preliminary surveillance, the app creators also hope to allay people’s fears brought by the pandemic.

“In the past couple of weeks, our team observed that it is important for people to access accurate and up-to-date information on their personal health, for them to feel more secure amid the pandemic,” said Charles de Belen, co-founder of ENDCoV. “They just want to know if they’re okay, if they’re safe.”

The app complies with the Mandatory Disclosure of Notifiable Diseases Act (R.A. 113322) and the Data Privacy Act (R.A. 10173), as well as the policies issued by the Inter-Agency Task Force and the Office of the President. The survey included in the app is also consistent with the World Health Organization’s (WHO) latest surveillance definition of the disease.

The app seeks to crowdsource interactive and locational data from users themselves. If ENDCoV’s algorithms detect that a user had interacted or was in close contact with a COVID-19-positive patient in the past two weeks, the app will notify the user to access the triage function, which will determine whether they should stay home for self-quarantine or seek testing.
 
“During our classes, we’ve been studying innovation as a means to improve the lives of people. So we wanted to come up with a solution that would ease the burden of this crisis on Filipinos, moreso our tireless health workers,” De Belen said.
 
The team is looking to add more functions after the app launches, such as heat maps that show high-risk areas to avoid, a telemedicine feature that allows online consultations with doctors,  and a printable e-copy of the triage results which can be sent directly to hospitals or the DOH.