IT companies are helping with their expertise in technology to help researchers, governments, frontline workers etc in the fight against Covid-19 like cutting through the clutter of misinformation, providing solutions to improve medical care management and administration. We present below some of the efforts of IT companies:
Thoughtworks
Thoughtworks has developed BharatSim, an ultra-large-scale and agent-based simulation model designed to check the spread of COVID-19 in India. The simulation model will be collaboratively created by Ashoka University, Haryana and ThoughtWorks, using EpiRust as the underlying framework. EpiRust is an open source framework that has been developed and released by ThoughtWorks.
In the BharatSim model, each individual will be simulated as an ‘agent’ on a computer. The agent’s properties will match those gathered from district and state level geographical and demographic studies – age distributions, sex ratios, population densities and health indicators. The model is planned to initially represent 5% of India’s population, at a detail that will be most useful to epidemic modelling. In the coming months, this will expand to represent nearly 40% of the population. BharatSim is set to simulate disease-spread across India, leveraging a minimalist approach that’s based on the disease dynamics from the Mordecai SEIR Model.
Explain Harshal Hayatnagarkar – Lead Computer Scientist and Chhaya Yadav – Delivery Partner for Engineering For Research, Thoughtworks India, “BharatSim is an ultra-large-scale and agent-based simulation model designed to check the spread of COVID-19 in India. The simulation model will be collaboratively created by Ashoka University, Haryana and ThoughtWorks, using EpiRust as the underlying framework. EpiRust is an open source framework that has been developed and released by ThoughtWorks. In the BharatSim model, each individual will be simulated as an ‘agent’ on a computer. The agent’s properties will match those gathered from district and state level geographical and demographic studies – age distributions, sex ratios, population densities and health indicators. The model is planned to initially represent 5% of India’s population, at a detail that will be most useful to epidemic modelling. In the coming months, this will expand to represent nearly 40% of the population. BharatSim is set to simulate disease-spread across India, leveraging a minimalist approach that’s based on the disease dynamics from the Mordecai SEIR Model.”
BharatSim is in the early stages of development. It is being conceived as India’s first ultra-large-scale agent-based simulation framework to model epidemic spread like in the case of COVID-19. The plan is to evolve the model to go beyond epidemics and into the sphere of economics and climate change and more. The framework will be founded on data that draws from geography, climate, pollution and economic factors. The intention is to scale the simulations up, to represent as much as 40% of India’s population. Here is an instance of use – EpiRust can be used to simulate various lockdown scenarios for the Greater Mumbai Metro Region with a population of 12 million agents. The simulation models ward-wise population while considering relative population density to evaluate the enforcement or lift of lockdown interventions.
The framework aims to scale and cover a pan-India population. Which is a huge step up forward, as currently we have no agent-based models that address disease spreads in India, and certainly none at the scale that’s been envisioned with BharatSim. The scale of the epidemic has affected all states which have collectively gone into lockdown. This is causing a shift in approach to – managing a post-lockdown society. And, such planning requires a detailed modelling that is India-specific. Such models must incorporate information like population age structures, health vulnerabilities like pre-existing conditions, access to health care and migration patterns. For instance, there has been a recent spurt of COVID cases in Dharavi, Mumbai which is also known to be one of the highest in population densities in Asia. The pressing challenge here is trying to understand how the disease can spread in such a dense urban setting. Agent-based modelling can be extremely useful in evaluating such situations to make informed decisions when rolling out India-specific COVID mitigation strategies and policies. Via active collaborations, the BharatSim team will seek inputs from the Indian health department, medical/biological research agencies and government departments to provide answers to critical questions like – how should the lockdown be relaxed across the country and what are the most optimal forms of such relaxations.
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SAP Asia Pacific Japan
Created using SAP and Qualtrics technology, Bridge-IT app is deigned to collate information from reliable sources including The World Health Organisation (WHO), and combine it with specific country data, local government guidance, travel information and relevant company policies, to provide localized information for users. It was developed in association with Global SAP Conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI), Digital Labs, Global Health Management, HR and Qualtrics teams. The app is available for free to all SAP employees and any customers globally who have an SAP Cloud Platform Enterprise Agreement.
It is also accessible as a webpage or as an Apple iOS application. It features include:
Data Platform – Powered by SAP Cloud Platform, the data platform bridges information from trustworthy global and local sources, as well as specific country, government and company data to provide accurate information in real time
Chatbot –With the help of SAP Conversational AI technology, the chatbot provides a user-friendly tool for questions and accessibility to company specific
FAQs or healthcare guidance
Automated Guidance Tools – Using Qualtrics, these personalised surveys span a range of topics for respondents to input their situation and be routed to appropriate resources based on their needs. This includes a COVID-19 symptoms survey, which provides tailored healthcare guidance and resources based on users’ answers regarding the symptoms displayed
Dashboard – This provides visualisations of real time data, such as impact of COVID-19 on supply chain and customer-based data, including public sentiment on SAP Analytics Cloud.
The app incorporates a standard set of data, including company policies, travel information, COVID-19 case numbers, health resources, and legislative updates. It can also be adapted to include specific data or information as required. Additional functionality, including a ‘Digital Boardroom’ feature, is set to be rolled out in the coming weeks.
Dr Nicholas John Nicoloudis, Machine Learning Principal, SAP Asia Pacific Japan and Lead on Bridge-IT project, says, “Bridge-IT is designed to help guard against COVID-19 misinformation and help people stay on top of important updates in the simplest way possible. It aims to provides accurate, corroborated and trustworthy information in real-time. We believe this can help governments address the problem of misinformation, and in turn, play a part in the fight against COVID-19. One of the major benefits for governments we believe, lies in the simplicity of the app, and how easy it can be deployed. Bridge-IT is a platform that unifies data from global health, local health and social sources. This data gives governments the visibility on where they need to focus resources, let it be critical, medical or general support and utilize Qualtrics to identify that employees and citizens are physically and mentally well during this crisis. The platform can be extended to add new features to register cases or provide geo-fencing through utilizing other SAP Cloud Platform services. We have the ability to integrate some of SAP’s other COVID-19 apps including SAP4Kids to make sure food is available for children and their families.”
One of the cities in Southeast Asia is looking at implementing this as it continues to intensify its campaign against COVID-19. There has been interest in the Middle East and the successful campaign with the Portland hospital in the US. One of the first SAP customers using the app, a global pharmaceuticals firm, has already rolled out the app for staff, including bespoke data on the number of COVID-19 cases searchable by hospital location. This helps employees at the firm to predict likely demand for medical supplies and respond accordingly.
Accenture
MyGov India, the citizen engagement platform of Government of India launched ‘MyGov Saathi,’ an AI powered virtual agent to support the government’s communication efforts around Covid-19 and Self4Society. ‘My Gov Saathi,’ is available on https://self4society.mygov.in/ as an additional, web based channel for citizens to obtain accurate and up-to-date answers for commonly asked questions. It will also provide ready access to Covid-19 related resources such as latest updates, helplines, advisories from various central and state government departments, and access to Self4Society initiatives including donation and volunteering opportunities. The AI Powered Virtual Agent has a responsive user interface, which ensures that that citizens can easily access it on their mobile devices.
‘MyGov Saathi’ has been developed pro-bono by Accenture in collaboration with Microsoft using the Microsoft Power Virtual Agent platform. In its current version, it uses a menu-driven approach, allowing users to select available options such as “Latest Update on Coronavirus in India”, “State level Status”, “Useful Alerts” and “Where to get help” to access information.
HGS
On the community front, HGS is currently partnering with the Karnataka State Health Department, along with a few other BPM companies, to support two of the state government’s critical helpline initiatives. One is a 24-hour COVID-19 phone helpline answering various queries from citizens.
Says Ramesh Gopalan, President – Healthcare and Head of India Business, HGS, “As a responsible corporate, HGS is doing its best to protect our employees and clients as well as assist our governments in their fight against COVID-19. From HGS, we have 70 employee volunteers, including 30 ‘work from home’ warriors, who are supporting this program. They clocked over 9,000 hours between mid-March and April 2020 responding to over 40,000 calls. The second one is Apthamitra, a 12-hour telemedicine helpline manned by over 50 nurses and doctors, which leverages HGS’ delivery site and technology infrastructure. Both of these initiatives are helping the government provide the right information to concerned citizens in a very stressful time. Many of our clients who are US-based healthcare organizations have received overwhelming queries regarding COVID-19. HGS’ telephonic nurse triage services have had to scale up by 150% of the normal resources to handle COVID-related queries for some of these clients. Our COVID-19 calls range from symptomatic assessments to prevention and treatment-related queries as well as benefit and copay-related questions. Our associates help these callers with understanding the waivers to co-payment of COVID-19 related services, referrals to telemedicine services for COVID-19 symptom assessments and supporting members who are unable to get regular medical care through our remote care management services. HGS has effectively helped our clients in addressing the spike in demand in a very short time through quick cross-skilling, upskilling from other clinical areas and digitally-led solutions.”
