HealthTech Companies Rally to Help Provide Free Services to Healthcare Professionals

Siilo Gives NHS Free Access to Crisis Management Functionality to Help Ease Coronavirus Burden

Following the unprecedented strain that the global spread of Coronavirus is placing upon healthcare systems, around the world, many technology companies are rallying to provide rapid, and in most cases free, access to solutions and systems that offer the potential to reduce some of the pressure facing healthcare professionals at this difficult time.

It is fantastic to see so many companies and organisations coming together for the social good, so here we provide more details of some of the technologies available to healthcare systems.

 

Siilo Gives NHS Free Access to Crisis Management Functionality to Help Ease Coronavirus Burden

Siilo Gives NHS Free Access to Crisis Management Technology to Help Ease Coronavirus Burden

Siilo, Europe’s largest messaging network for health and care professionals, is offering all health and care professionals across the UK free access to its organisational crisis management functionality in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Over the past two weeks, downloads of the Siilo app have surged and usage has tripled, with the app’s crisis management tool being used to ensure urgent communication can be made whilst dealing with the increasing influx of patients presenting with COVID-19.

Siilo, which is free to download from both Apple and Android app stores, is now ensuring this premium crisis management functionality is available completely free of charge for as long as is needed.

Dr Darren Lui, Spinal and Orthopaedic Surgeon at St George’s Hospital, said: “Maintaining open and up-to-date lines of communication is crucial with hospitals dealing with a growing number of patients, which is why our team is using Siilo to communicate safely, effectively and efficiently to discuss and share information and pictures while remaining compliant.

“We’ve seen the benefits of WhatsApp in these situations, but of course it comes with the major caveat of confidentiality. Even at this time of crisis, we need to ensure we are communicating as safely and securely as possible — we owe it to our patients.

“As the global pandemic worsens, my advice to healthcare organisations is to download Siilo. You shouldn’t think twice about it.

As experienced by medical professionals in northern Italy, the ability to rapidly connect and share information has been critical, and Siilo users across Ireland, Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, as well as those at the epicentre of the pandemic in Italy, are using the app to connect whole hospitals and regions on one secure platform, create and coordinate crisis messaging groups, and centrally broadcast crucial messages to the workforce, to ensure all the right people stay informed and connected.

Since the global pandemic began, Siilo has noticed three common use-cases of the technology being deployed to help combat the spread of the Coronavirus:

  1. Internal networks to send time-sensitive updates on the spread of the virus to minimise the risk of in-hospital transmission
  2. Peer networks, including all national infectious disease and intensive care specialists, to share real-time insights in the treatment of their COVID-19 patients
  3. Regional and global networks including department heads to address capacity problems, resource allocation, and disseminating treatment protocols

Dr Joost Bruggeman, CEO of Siilo, said: “COVID-19 developments are painfully exposing how legacy silos and time-consuming phone tag are slowing down collaboration and knowledge sharing.

We’ve seen organisations and users coordinate crisis plans and communicate with impacted staff all across Europe on our platform. We want to make that a possibility for all overburdened healthcare organisations so they can continue to focus on their patients.

The Siilo team has also extended its hours to keep up with increasing demand to answer questions and expedite user onboarding.

Click here to see how Siilo is helping organisations address COVID-19.

 

Selenity Offers Free Access to Online HR Case Management System to Help UK Businesses Manage Coronavirus Absence

Selenity Offers Free Access to Online HR Case Management System to Help UK Businesses Manage COVID-19 Absence

Selenity has announced it is providing free access to Selenity ER Tracker, the UK’s leading HR case management system. ER Tracker CV-19 technology will help UK businesses record and manage Coronavirus related absences.

During this unprecedented time, looking after employees is high priority and we appreciate the challenges organisations will face in tracking and managing COVID-19 related absences. Many businesses, including Selenity, are relying heavily on remote working, supported by cloud-based services. This free online system will provide HR departments a way to monitor and track their COVID-19 cases and allow their teams to have access and visibility wherever they are working,” commented Neil Everatt, Chief Executive Officer at Selenity.

ER Tracker CV-19 will help organisations manage the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic by:

  • Recording employee absences and associated information
  • Ensuring cases are being treated fairly for employees and in accordance with HR policies
  • Providing full visibility and monitoring of employee HR cases
  • Allowing HR teams to manage an increased case load remotely

Neil added: “We’re seeing stories everyday of how individuals are helping others in this current climate through community action and support groups; helping those most vulnerable get access to food and medical help. What’s also amazing to see is how organisations are supporting each other. In our local area alone, we’re witnessing a real sense of pulling together. It was an absolute no-brainer for us to offer businesses our HR solution free of charge. Selenity ER Tracker plays a huge role in supporting HR departments, an area which will feel an enormous impact during the coronavirus outbreak.

Anthony Sherwin, Director of Client Services at Selenity added: “We understand how important it is for businesses to feel confident they will be fully supported during this uncertain time and that their data is secure. Our UK support team will be available online along with our help and support portal; coupled with Selenity’s CyberEssentials Plus and ISO 27001:2013 certification, businesses have the peace of mind they’re fully secure and supported.

Access to the free system, ER Tracker CV-19, is available to UK organisations with over 500 employees and will be available on a first come, first served basis for a 6-month period. Selenity will look to extend the offer depending on the environment at that time.

Selenity is also offering an additional case type, for a limited time, to its current customers free of charge so that they can also manage cases specifically related to COVID-19.

Organisations interested in ER Tracker CV-19 can visit selenity.com/cv-19 for more details.

 

Alibaba Cloud Offers Cloud HealthTech Services to Help Battle Covid-19

Alibaba Cloud Offers Cloud Technology to Help Battle Coronavirus

Alibaba Cloud, the data intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, said today it has offered medical personnel around the world advanced cloud-based technology applications in the fight against the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

The artificial intelligence-enhanced innovations are based on learnings and insights garnered during the initial outbreak of the virus.

The series of cloud-native anti-coronavirus solutions stem from joint efforts of Alibaba Cloud’s solution experts, scientists and researchers from Alibaba DAMO Academy and the technical team at DingTalk, one of the platforms UNESCO has tabbed as facilitating distance learning during the coronavirus outbreak.

While DingTalk might be better-known for supporting more than 120 million students across China with their live-streamed online classes, the team has taken it up a notch to launch DingTalk’s International Medical Expert Communication Platform, hosted on Alibaba Cloud. It provides a means of free communication for medical workers all over the world to directly contact doctors from medical institutions such as the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University and others in China, who have been on the frontline of the COVID-19 battle.

Through video conferencing and real-time AI translation into 11 languages (Arabic, Bahasa, Chinese, English, French, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, Thai, Turkish, and Vietnamese), Alibaba Cloud aims to build a virtual community, inviting Chinese doctors to share their experiences and answer questions from global peers.

From Alibaba DAMO Academy, a global research initiative by Alibaba, three proven solutions are being made available via free trial for medical professionals and research institutes worldwide. Alibaba Cloud will work with local partners to deploy relevant services and solutions in accordance with local laws and regulations.

Epidemic Prediction Solution models epidemic characteristics of COVID-19 in a particular region, providing estimates of size, peak time and duration of the epidemic, as well as the spreading trends under three conditions – optimistic, neutral, and pessimistic. Based on machine learning, the algorithm was already tested on the data from 31 provinces in China and averaged 98% accuracy. It can serve as a reference to policymakers and medical researchers on prevention and control measures, medical resource allocation and travel advisories.

CT Image Analytics Solution is a CT image analytics technology service that can significantly improve testing accuracy and detection efficiency for diagnosing COVID-19. With deep-learning algorithms trained by data in China, the trained model can predict the probability of different pneumonia types, including the variety associated with COVID-19. It also performs computations of the proportion of lesions and the affected volume ratio to the entire lungs, by using the lung segmentation method. The whole test takes about 3 to 4 seconds to run and 15 to 16 seconds of transmission time,making it nearly 60 times faster than human detection. More than 160 hospitals in China are currently using the solution.

Genome Sequencing for Coronavirus Diagnostic Solution, an AI algorithm from Alibaba DAMO Academy and running on Alibaba Cloud, is a virus genome sequencing technology for coronavirus analytics, including viral genetic data screening, evolutionary analysis, protein structure analysis, and diagnostic reporting. It can complete the diagnosis of new coronavirus within 14 hours, which is five times faster than other available sequencing solutions in China. It can screen more than 20 people simultaneously, making the averaged time for each sample just around half an hour, much shorter than the normal two hours with the PCR method. The solution helps disease control centres, hospitals and clinics, and laboratories to address challenges such as insufficient nucleic acid detection capacity, high false-negative rates of the PCR method, and possible virus mutations.

Supporting advanced innovations during emergencies like COVID-19 requires extremely scalable supercomputing power. For this, Alibaba Cloud offers Elastic High-Performance Computing (E-HPC) Solution for Life Sciences, a cloud-native high-performance computing cluster solution designed for researchers working on life sciences applications, especially for Computational-Driven-Drug-Design (CDDD) and AI-Driven-Drug-Design (AIDDD). The solution already supports 20 research groups in China. For example, the intelligent CT diagnostic system on COVID-19 pneumonia developed by Tsinghua University can complete diagnosing in 10 seconds, and the performance of gene assembly by Sun Yat-sen University is accelerated by 25% utilizing the solution. Alibaba Cloud has also partnered with the Global Health Drug Discovery Institute (GHDDI) in Beijing to launch an AI-driven-drug-discovery platform based on E-HPC.

For those looking to learn more about key lessons and experience from doctors and other medical personnel at the First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine (FAHZU), the Jack Ma Foundation and Alibaba Foundation have also shared a handbook from the medical personnel covering what they’ve learned every step of the way, from screening to diagnosis and treatment of patients who contracted COVID-19. Medical personnel can download the handbook at https://covid-19.alibabacloud.com/.