VIRTUAL CARE/TELEMEDECINE

• The utility and value of technology-enabled, asynchronous in space and/or time virtual care—termed telemedicine—have been written about and studied for decades but not universally implemented.
• Even though some clinical systems, such as Kaiser Permanente, embraced virtual visits for a majority of their ambulatory patient interactions long before COVID-19. But Kaiser and others like it were the exception. The pandemic has changed this. 

EDUCATION

• The Covid Pandemic has also ensured the disruption of offline education - at all levels.
• As with telemedicine, the potential of web-based education has been touted for years, but uptake among educational institutions has widely varied.
•  The removal of medical students from their clinical rotations is a profound disruptor. 
• Augmented and virtual reality are the next frontier in educational program development. Already available for teaching anatomy and surgical procedures, might this technology be leveraged to replace, at least in part, what heretofore trainees learned on clinical rotations? 

Citations: 

Woolliscroft JO. Innovation in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic Crisis. Acad Med. 2020 Aug;95(8):1140-1142. doi: 10.1097/ACM.0000000000003402. PMID: 32282372; PMCID: PMC7188042

COVID-19 has opened the floodgates of expensive technology on one side and has given a silver lining of healthcare to the vulnerable and disadvantaged population with fragile health system on the other. This pandemic has been a powerful catalyst for global innovation to face this unprecedented urgency. 

Soumya Swaminathan, the chief scientist in WHO, said at Global Bio-India 2021, 'India has shown the capacity to be a manufacturer at the global scale and also be an innovator when it came to vaccine development'.

SNEHA - The Society for Nutrition Education and Health Actions in Mumbai, is using phone and website resources for the vulnerable population as follows:

• Providing information on COVID-19
• Ways to manage risk cases
• For patients needing palliative care

12.8% of the global innovation in technology to manage the pandemic is from Africa.

• In Kigali International Airport, the robots enabled screening of 150 people per minute.
• Sierra Leone, South Africa has self-grown technology such as information providing drones and solar powered handwashing stations.

In South Korean hospitals, a patient steps into the coronavirus testing booth, takes medical consultation and steps out in 7 minutes. Then, the booth gets sanitized and ventilated for the next patient.

An Artificial intelligence software company, Axial3D, has developed technology to print face shields, ventilator parts and nasopharyngeal swabs for testing.

Thus, COVID-19 has developed an avalanche of innovations globally.

Due to pandemic, the mode of teaching has transformed into online and for effective teaching, different strategies were adopted to improve competencies among students. In this paper, Thinking based Instruction theory(TBIT)  has been introduced which cultivates students thinking ability via instructional activities and result showed TBIT engaged the students involvement and increase their motivation to learn and decrease the workload on the students. It also achieves the interdisciplinary nature of the content as it targets the key competencies of the students.

to Read more click  here

  //www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.601607/full

COVID-19 has had adverse effects on physical, economic and mental health of individuals and communities. This article documents the effects of COVID-19 pandemic on mental health and well-being and highlights the context specific innovations and adaptations to MHPSS (Mental Health and Psychosocial Support) interventions from across the world. It talks about the efforts and contributions of healthcare workers to the collaborative project of Mental Health Innovation Network (MHIN) and the WHO Department of Mental Health and Substance Use project entitled “Stories from the field”. Exemplary case studies are presented across five themes that prove support can be maintained even in the most adverse situations.

References:

1. //www.mhinnovation.net/
2. //www.interventionjournal.org/article.asp?issn=1571-8883;year=2020;volume=18;issue=2;spage=159;epage=165;aulast=Hamilton

@b-shivani very informative one and totally agree to it👏

Due to the increased restrictions of movement of the people, work has shifted from large office complexes, to working from home on one’s digital gadgets, students have shifted from schools and classrooms, to online classes, there has been a lot of online courses and online delivery facilities which have come up in order to cater to the needs of the people from home itself, as a famous person once quoted, that – “necessity is the mother of invention” and rightly so, people have devised ways of operating online, and proven their resourcefulness henceforth, by running online enterprises, digital marketing, online classes and other online ventures in order to earn a living or keep themselves occupied, or to pick up a new skill from the comfort of their homes

Telemedicine and teleconsultation has seen a substantial rise, specially after the 2nd wave of the pandemic, which saw the doctors getting overburdened by the excessive patient load.

MIT and Harvard engineers developed a face mask that detects COVID-19 using biosensor technology by detecting SARS-CoV-2 in a wearer's breath within just 90 minutes, the sensor tech can be programmed to detect any kind of virus or toxin and is small enough to be integrated into clothing fabric. - via NEW ATLAS article by Rich Haridy.  

Yes it has been a roller coaster ride economically and mentally. Nice Article, and yes support can be maintained even in the most adverse situations. 

With the second wave of the resurgence of Covid-19, the shortfall of ventilators across the globe has led many doctors to come up with innovative and effective machinery to combat the crisis.

To start with, Dr. Sonal Asthana from Aster Hospitals Bangaluru, along with his colleagues helped India breathe with their invention. The shortage of ventilators was a red alarm causing an increase in fatality rates. A Bengaluru-based deep-tech start-up, Ethereal Machines had come up with ‘differential ventilation’ which is 3D-printed ventilator splitters that allow doctors to treat two patients having different oxygen requirements with the same ventilator.

In the United Kingdom, Dr. Rhys Thomas, a consultant anesthetist at Glangwili General Hospital established a ventilation system along with a local engineering company called “COVID Emergency Ventilator” in just three days. Apart from helping patients breathe, it also helps the room get rid of viral particles ensuring the patients are supplied only with purified air. This ventilator has received approval from the Welsh Government and is under mass production.

Another notable innovation is by an Anesthetist Dr. Alain Gauthier at Perth & Smiths Falls District hospital Ontario, who improvised a ventilator to treat nine patients at the same time. This was done by pairing patients with similar lung sizes and capacities, and attaching multiple hoses to a single ventilator.

References:

1. //www.business-standard.com/article/companies/these-techies-are-3d-printing-ventilator-splitters-for-covid-19-patients-120033100725_1.html  
2. BBC News (2020) Coronavirus: The new inventions inspired by a pandemic, BBC News. Available at: //www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-52008745
3. LOOK: Ventilator Hack from Canada - Genius doctor transforms 1 ventilator to 9! - Healthcare Channel COVID-19 (2020). //healthcarechannel.co/look-ventilator-hack-from-canada-genius-doctor-transforms-1-ventilator-to-9/

1.Wyskiel: The essence of entrepreneurship is identifying an unmet need and moving as fast as possible to get a meaningful product to market. This is exactly what society needs during crisis situations like the COVID-19 pandemic.
2. Emocha Mobile Health: which for years has been working on a mobile application for disease surveillance. Over time they have tracked tuberculosis and addiction, as well as medication adherence. The Johns Hopkins Health System is now using emocha to track COVID-19 symptoms of their 7,500 doctors, nurses, and staff to determine whether they are safe to come to work. Emocha happened to be the perfectly suited solution for this scenario, and it is now being used more broadly because of the newly identified need.
3.ClearMask, which, as the name implies, makes transparent facemasks – solving a crucial accessibility challenge for deaf and hard of hearing patients. The company has seen a more than 400-fold increase in weekly orders compared to pre-COVID numbers and is planning to supply millions of masks in the coming months.
4. BurnAlong, an app used by employers to set up employee wellness programs and by gyms and fitness instructors to record and live-stream classes for clients. Whereas it typically took a week to set up a new client, the company has managed to clients onto its platform in one day to meet demand. Business has doubled this year compared to last year, and seven times as many people took classes in March compared to February. I think it is telling that more than a quarter of all classes taken are in BurnAlong’s specialty and emotional support categories, which includes mental health. It was not invented or planned for this type of situation, but what a wonderful tool for folks that want to stay “well” and fit.

References: //coronavirus.jhu.edu/from-our-experts/innovation-and-entrepreneurship-during-the-covid-19-pandemic

Good article

Good Information 

The Covid-19 pandemic has upended nearly every aspect of life, from the personal to the professional. Thus, innovations are the solution to meet the challenges posed by Covid-19 in five key areas: data and population surveillance, testing, communications, therapeutics and vaccine development.

The pandemic has brought hunger to millions of people around the world. Social distancing measures coupled with national lockdowns have reduced work opportunities and the overall household incomes. 

Hence, Social innovation for food security and poverty alleviation became a necessity.

Rural China was selected for this study because, while poverty in the country has dropped immensely over the past decade, it remains a major problem in the countryside. Some of the innovations made are:

• Digital social innovation and E-agriculture in support of the belt and road initiative.
• The community-supported agriculture model.
• Artificial Intelligence and blockchains to govern food security.
• Social innovations by optimizing waste prevention strategies.

As the Covid pandemic rages in India, entrepreneurs are putting in more technology innovations to deal with the crisis and bank on it. The four technology innovations that sprung up in India during this outbreak are:

• CoronaOven- a multi-focal UV disinfection chamber that claims to sanitize any surface within four minutes.
• Vistar- air purifiers that use a patent filter technology called EGAPA to filter out major pollutants and gaseous substances.
• Milagrow Seagull- a robot vacuum with anti-bacterial, anti-microbial and anti-viral properties.
• Dozee- helps in better healthcare access by providing accurate diagnosis of conditions.

Other fascinating Covid-related innovations from around the world are:

• Drive-through medical clinics clinics that reduce contamination risks for patients.
• Smart masks that connect to phones via bluetooth.
• Robot using UV light to kill Covid could be used to disinfect warehouses, schools and offices.
• Hospital-grade air purification system for the senior living community.
• Covid-safe modular parklets to help restaurants reopen.

                 INNOVATIONS IN THE TIME OF COVID 19

INTRODUCTION

The outbreak of the COVID-19 disease has posed great challenges to the worldwide economy and people’s daily lives and will have far-reaching consequences beyond the spread of the disease. At the same time, crisis is also a strong driver of creativity and innovation. Indeed, if examined closely, one can already observe abundant creativity and innovation emerging at the national, institutional, organizational, and individual levels within the countries affected by COVID-19.

INNOVATIONS

While we cannot solve challenging problems overnight, the engagement of companies, universities, governments, non-profits, and individuals around the world has shown that society can focus on tackling real-world challenges quickly. In high- and low-resource settings alike, and from global through to local levels, effective responses have emphasised trial-and-error experimental approaches and the use of evidence and science to generate novel ideas.

Examples include:

• Rapidly developing and deploying tests, personal protective equipment (PPE), clinical procedures, pharmaceutical treatments, and the ultimate holy grail of reliable and safe vaccines to protect against COVID-19.
• Developing effective surveillance techniques and technologies for tracking and tracing cases.
• Identifying ways of reducing transmission, including appropriate measures for reducing social contact, shielding the most vulnerable, and quarantining suspected and known cases.
• Developing appropriate policies and interventions for dealing with social and economic effects, as well as ensuring a secure and sustainable longer-term recovery.
• the luxury goods company LVMH converted it's perfume factory to produce hand sanitizer for France’s healthcare sector last month.
• Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn has started making masks. 
• Fashion designers have temporarily pivoted from evening gowns to medical gowns, and automakers are in discussions with governments to make ventilators. 
• Engineers are using 3D printers to create plastic shields for healthcare workers.
• Restaurants have come up with ways to ensure at-risk communities still have access to food.
• Educators have created online classrooms in a matter of days. Information resources to educate the public and track the spread of the virus using big data sprang up seemingly overnight.
• Finally, those of us fortunate enough to have jobs that allow us to work from home are learning the full potential of the communication technologies that the 21^st century has bestowed upon us. None of these tasks have been easy, but individuals and organizations have demonstrated the motivation and mind shifts needed to research, innovate, and act quickly.

CITATIONS

1. //www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/13833/creativity-and-innovation-in-times-of-crisis-covid-19
2. //www.ie.edu/insights/articles/innovation-in-the-time-of-covid-19/
3. //www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/innovation-development-and-covid-19-challenges-opportunities-and-ways-forward-0c976158/

Digital innovation is the one that has helped us combat COVID-19. Digital technologies have made us capable to support ourselves in the fight against COVID-19.

Prior to COVID, the most visible uses of emerging technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence, has been in the field of entertainment, in increasing productivity and convenience. 

But now, the potential of digital technologies have reached immense heights. Emerging technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), have helped us  to expedite the development of a vaccine and helped the authorities predict which public health measures would be the  most effective. Also, digital technologies have helped us to keep the public updated with scientific information.

They have made us able to move much of our lives online, not halting the economic and education flow, helping us stay home and maintain social distancing.

Moreover, they’ve helped us remain connected to one another in such critical times.

However, not all regions and social groups are equally able to harness the potential of digital technologies to combat the virus. According to the State of Broadband 2019 Report, the internet user penetration rate is 51.2%, but it is only 45% in developing countries and, 20% in least developed countries.

The digital divides have always existed, but in a situation where many people have to stay home and work/study from home, it transforms from a disadvantage to a ‘debilitating disability’.

Therefore, work is needed in terms of sustainable digital innovations,

The long-term is to increase access to digital technologies, and in the short-term, to ensure that lack of access does not translate into an inability to continue daily life.

Fighting COVID-19 through digital innovation and transformation (unesco.org)

Posted by: @ashishjoshi

Please share your thoughts on innovations in the time of COVID-19.

As the covid pandemic rages in india, entrepreneurs are putting in more technology innovations to deal with the crisis 

Innovations are

Corona oven - it makes use of UV-C light in combination with significant design parameters. The device disinfects surfaces from germs .

vistar-it displays the real time progress and map while cleaning on the user's device. this robot vaccum also features anti bacterial, anti microbial, and anti viral properties.

dozee-it is a device that aims to help in access to better health care y providing accurate diagnosis for condititons. it keeps tracking the health consitions of the individual through the metrics like heart health, stress, sleep quality among others.