SINGAPORE, April 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- PALO IT, an international 'Tech for Good' consultancy specialising in human-centered design, Agile software development, and tech transformation, is delighted to announce that it has developed an app to help healthcare professionals provide care for large numbers of COVID-19 patients remotely.
Known as Virtual Bed, the app also aims to ease the pressure on overburdened healthcare systems by keeping patients with mild symptoms at home, so that frontline staff such as doctors and nurses can focus on more severe cases that require hospitalisation.
Following initial conversations with eHealth (the Australian Digital Health Agency), and the technology arm of the United Nations, the company will be offering it to governments and healthcare providers for free.
"The vision of our company is technology for the greater good. We constantly look for ways to build products that positively impact people and society and it's very motivating for our team to be working on something meaningful in the current climate."
"While protecting the jobs within our teams is our number one priority, we also saw an opportunity to build something that might be helpful to people, or the healthcare sector. We did some research and interviewed some of our contacts in the National Health Service in the UK to better understand the gap in the market between existing solutions and the market need during COVID-19," said PALO IT Co-founder Tanguy Fournier Le Ray.
The PALO IT team - consisting of a CTO and seven developers and designers, spent three weeks developing a working version of the app with regular feedback from healthcare professionals. Designed according to well-known clinical assessment standards and for ease of use, Virtual Bed allows patients to monitor themselves in their own homes and removes the need to travel to healthcare facilities to get assessed. Patients benefit from support and peace of mind, while preventing them from inadvertently transmitting the virus.
With Virtual Bed, patients can log on and record their symptoms at regular intervals. The app stores details of any risk factors or pre-existing health conditions they may have, such as diabetes or hypertension. They can also input other health metrics like their temperature, respiratory, heart rate, and blood pressure. This data is then used to create a National Early Warning Score. Healthcare professionals are able to monitor these scores on a dashboard and intervene if the patient's condition deteriorates.
"An added bonus is that the app will generate a huge amount of data, which researchers will be able to use to study the disease as analytics are built in the product," he added.
To limit the barriers of implementation, Virtual Bed is designed to massively scale. Built on Microsoft's Azure Cloud Platform, it will not be complex to create new instances for healthcare organisations through infrastructure automation. Notable improvements in development include video-calling, geolocation, and various hardware and health kit integration.
Through the conceptualisation, creation, and potential deployment of Virtual Bed, Fournier Le Ray believes that as a technology company, PALO IT has an important role to play to address the global challenge of COVID-19.
For more information, please follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/palo-it or visit www.palo-it.com. Institutions who are interested in using VirtualBeds can get in touch with PALO IT at hellosg@palo-it.com
About PALO IT
PALO IT is a global innovation consultancy and Agile software development company dedicated to helping organisations embrace tech as a force for good. With over 400 experts and 11 offices across seven countries, we work with clients to rapidly launch products and services, create new business models, and prepare leadership and culture for the future.
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