App to monitor Covid patients at home

Gurgaon: Struggling to monitor Covid-19 patients in home isolation — the challenge is the biggest in Gurgaon, where over 35,000 people are recovering at home — the Haryana government has decided to arm healthcare workers with a mobile app to make their job easier. Haryana CHI, which will be accessible only to healthcare workers and home isolation teams, will record patients’ details like address and vitals like temperature, oxygen level, comorbidities, family members, and vaccination status. The app will also indicate if a patient is asymptomatic, mild, moderate or severe.
This is a very ambitious project for Haryana as it has more than one lakh Covid patients in home isolation at present, of which 35% are in Gurgaon. The city has 42 home isolation teams with two members each. “We received the user ID and password for the app from the state government on Sunday. We will be working on it from Monday,” said Dr Isha Narang, deputy civil surgeon, Gurgaon.
“A member of the home isolation team will upload data of a patient showing Covid symptoms, and the app will determine if he/she can be put on home isolation or hospitalisation is required. Earlier, the data was recorded on Google Sheets,” she added.
Health workers will also upload details of the family members of Covid patients who are in home isolation on the app. “This will be an extensive exercise in which we can check if the teams are visiting patients regularly,” said Dr Virender Yadav, chief medical officer, Gurgaon.
Home isolation kits worth Rs 80 lakh to be distributed
Gurgaon will distribute around 1,600 kits with medicines and other equipment required for Covid patients under home isolation.
The kit will contain 15 items, including masks, medicines, digital thermometer, steamer and pulse oximeter, among others. Each kit is worth Rs 5,000 and will be provided free of cost to those in home isolation. For the project, Gurgaon will receive Rs 80 lakh under the National Health Mission.