BENGALURU: If there’s one thing the pandemic has changed the world over, it’s the status quo that we had all taken for granted. Especially in the way we handle our healthcare needs; be it the over-the-counter drugs we relied on for every ailment or the family doctor who was trusted to be available when you needed them. As much as the virus has presented one too many challenges, sector after sector has managed to counter that with innovative solutions. Joining this short period of proud history is Quarantine Log, an app that promises to be a diligent guide for you and your doctor as you navigate the infection in isolation.
The app was born out of necessity for Shrayas Rajagopal. Just this year, his parents and in-laws tested positive for Covid and it fell upon him and his wife to care for them — keep track of vitals, communicate the same to the doctor and keep the history accurate.
But with all of this happening on WhatsApp or Excel sheets, it got pretty tedious quite fast.
“There wasn’t one place where we could have access to all this information. It got even more difficult for the doctor because one doctor was seeing four patients. So it was very difficult for the doctor to keep track of the history. As far as they understand it, Covid moves in a certain fashion (irrespective of the variant). So what they would like to know is how the movement is — over a few hours or days. Putting all this together, we decided to build an app for it,” he shares.
Tracking made easy
The head of all the engineering efforts at Logic Soft, a software solutions firm in Chennai, Shrayas had just the resources for the job. Quarantine Log is a simple medical history tracking app that lets you record and store details of multiple patients. From temperature to oxygen saturation, from blood tests to medicines administered, everything gets recorded with the time and date. The current status and the history is made available to the doctor. One place to keep track of it all.
“It can manage multiple family members within the application. The app is also localised and we’re starting with Tamil language. This will broaden the access to more people,” he says. User access tests with not particularly tech savvy people gave them quite positive results and allowed them to address parts of the app that were not user friendly, he adds. A feature they are trying to get ready in time of launch — hourly reminders to update the recording of vitals — is also a direct result of the pilot tests.
While app fatigue is a common concern for any user, Quarantine Log is designed to be a short term, period-specific solution and hence will bypass that concern, he suggests. And the pilot tests seem to indicate the same. DG Badarinath, project chairman of Rotary Bangalore Peenya Trust, reports that the app “fit the gap that it aimed to fill”.
Doctors who tried it out, too, have only positive reviews. “The app is very good to keep a tab on all clinical and lab parameters at one place for the home care/ COVID care centre patients. Its uniqueness is that it helps in giving a neat and precise information more so to doctors as they are hard pressed for time during such periods,” says Dr Basavaraj Kuntoji, consultant physician Manipal Hospital, Bengaluru.
While Covid-related needs may have fuelled the creation of the app, Shrayas hopes that is would go on to serve a few other kinds of patients in the long run. “My friend found that this could be useful for his father who recently had a lung transplant. The surgery required him to share vitals and health status with the doctor periodically. And both of them were having trouble keeping track of the history. This app could potentially solve those problems. And do the same in geriatric care,” he surmises. Soon enough, there are plans to add features to address these needs, he adds.
The app will be available for all Android devices this week. An iOS version will follow soon.