By Cat Linh & Hong-My Basrai
IRVINE, California (NV) – Six months have passed and the United States is still battling the COVID-19 pandemic, which continues to rage out of control with infection rates and the death toll rising. The world is trying to adjust to a new normal as we adapt to life with COVID-19. But how can we learn to live safely alongside with, as President Donald Trump put it, an “invisible enemy” that so far has killed over half a million people worldwide?
Fortunately, nothing is impossible, especially in the era of the Internet of Things, or IoT, Data Analytics, and Artificial Intelligence, or AI. Irvine-based companies NousLogic Telehealth Inc. & NousLogic Healthcare Inc. offer two useful and effective smart products to help people live safely with COVID-19. After all, Nous, a not very popular English word, means smart, intelligent
Limit the need to visit healthcare facilities
In March, when the COVID-19 pandemic transmission rate was peaking and the order to social distance and shelter at home had been issued in the United States, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Tran shared a newly universal worry: They could not visit their healthcare providers for crucial routine checkups. As senior citizens, the risk of visiting a healthcare provider in the midst of a pandemic has forced many to reconsider receiving necessary medical attention.
However, thanks to NousLogic Telehealth’s Smart RPM-Remote Patient Monitoring, the Tran’s family doctor is now notified of their daily health status, utilizing real-time IoT and AI data analytics.
When asked whether the advanced methods offered through smart health devices had been too difficult to utilize since everything relies on complex wireless IoT communication and AI data analytics to provide insights on the 4 W’s “Who, What, Where, When,” Mr. Tran commented: “It was so easy to operate.”
“In March we received a device to measure our blood pressure and a Smart RPM-Remote Patient Monitoring Hub together with our account login ID and password. The Smart Hub connects to the Internet via our home wifi network. We are now able to measure our own BP daily which, together with our blood sugar and body temperature, are then instantly and automatically uploaded and stored in the cloud, accessible via smartphone or computer at our doctor’s office. Unlike before, we no longer have to write down our health data for logging-with-timestamp purpose,” Mr. Tran tells Nguoi Viet newspaper reporter.
The virtualization of the doctor-patient relationship doesn’t stop there, however. The Smart medication adherence reminder, another innovation of NousLogic, reminds patients to take their recommended medicine doses on time. CEO and Founder of NousLogic Telehealth, Hoang Nhu, explains “Smart Pill Bottle and Smart 7-Day Pill Box with Smart Hub are two pioneering products with the ability to remind patients to take their prescribed medicines on time and in correct amounts. Each Smart Pill Bottle has a sensor under its cap, which signals the Smart Hub each time the bottle is opened. If the patient forgets to take his pills, the Smart Hub will send a beeping audio reminder.” Smart RPM is also not dependent on a wifi connection, “Since Smart Hub is equipped with an optional sim card, patients without Internet/Wifi access at homes can be supported via Verizon or AT&T cellular networks; and they will be able to shelter safely at home,” Nhu explains.
Dr. Vu Theriot, co-founder/Chief Medical Officer of NousLogic, offers additional clarification regarding their products’ business model: “Starting in January 2019, this preventive telemedicine service is covered by our federal Medicare program for patients 65 years old or older. Medicare introduced new reimbursement codes to incentivize doctor offices that adopt RPM’s preventive medicine for their patients in an effort to cut down on costly hospitalization costs.”
Forget to wash hands? Instant Reminder! And the need for Covid-19 Contact Tracing: Solutions based on the 4 W’s Data
“This virus is here to stay,” says Sarah Cobey, an epidemiologist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago in an interview with the Washington Post. “The question is, how do we live with it safely?”
The reality is that there isn’t yet a vaccine for COVID-19. Therefore, the CDC encourages everyone to wear a mask, wash their hands for 20 seconds, and keep a 6-foot distance.
Even so, how will anyone be assured that these “new normal” habits are being practiced, especially in settings such as hospitals, restaurants, stores?
NousLogic hand-hygiene tracking (HHT), the second product of NousLogic Healthcare, reminds us of good hand washing practice, utilizing wireless IoT sensors and AI/data analytics to provide intelligence and unique insights on the 4 W’s : Who is doing What, Where, When. Nhu informs us, “In many restaurant restrooms, we usually encounter signs like, Employees should wash hands after restroom use. But how do we know whether or not this is observed and also how to enforce this public-health rule. With HHT technology, the absent-minded employee will be reminded to wash his hands and hand-hygiene compliance data conveniently obtained.”
According to Nhu, each employee will be equipped with a wearable ID tag that emits beacon to signal to the HHT system in the workplace bathrooms of his/her presence. When the employee’s presence is detected but he fails to use the hand-sanitizer to dispense soap, HHT will beep to remind the employee to be compliant and also upload these time stamped events to the cloud for storage, data analysis, and notification. “Each hand sanitizer dispenser has a NousLogic proximity sensor attached to it to detect whether the dispenser is used, indicated by the proximity of his hand to the dispenser. If the hand is detected, this time-stamped event together with the employee ID is uploaded to the cloud and marked as a satisfactory hand-hygiene compliant event ,” says Nhu.
With hand washing becoming necessary to mitigate the transmission rates of COVID-19, restaurants and bars will not be the only places needing HHT. Most importantly, it is the healthcare facilities that are in need of this technology. Dr. Chet Chea, Director of Infectious Disease for Vibra hospitals in San Francisco and Kentfield, California, where NousLogic Healthcare’s HHT was installed, tells Nguoi Viet Daily News: “Viral infections differ from bacterial infections. We are currently facing a virus, which is predominant in hospital settings. The best preventive method is proper hand washing. That is why, to me, HHT is very important in the current situation and also in the future.”
Dr. Chea emphasizes that doctors and nurses in hospitals are not the only ones vulnerable to viral infections, but also medical residents, patients, and their family members. In order to manage and maintain public health, it is necessary to have HHT to monitor and remind everyone’s adherence to handwashing. “Since the HHT system installation, we have been able to monitor the handwashing awareness and habit of everyone in our facilities,” says Dr. Chea. He adds, “HHT system is quite useful as it serves other applications such as contact tracing, which means whom the infected person has met, where, when.”
“It is very difficult to backtrace the contacts of a COVID-19 infected person in order to limit community spread. NousLogic Data Analytics technology makes use of the same “4 W’s” data collected by the HHT system in order to extract the ‘Who, Where, When.’ And the problem of COVID-19 Contact Tracing will be solved,” says Dr. Chea.
DuyLoan Le, Senior Fellow at Texas Instrument, one of the four oldest US companies, confirms the important role of HHT: “During a time when the whole world is facing COVID-19 and with no vaccine yet available, we have to follow what the scientists have recommended, which is to keep our hands clean. HHT is a means to help establish handwashing habits necessary to help contain COVID-19 transmission.”
As a scientist and patent holder of 24 inventions, including five pioneering patents, Le understands the importance of IoT and AI products. She remembers when NousLogic Telehealth approached her several years ago, she had perceived useful applications of the company products in the near future, “I’m totally convinced by the usefulness and effectiveness of NousLogic Telehealth’s RPM and NousLogic Healthcare’s HHT & Contact Tracing.”
Mr. Nhu, the architect and developer of NousLogic RPM , HHT and contact tracing products, confidently concluded: “Although COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted medicine and healthcare, with new IoT/Cloud services and AI/Data Analytics, humanity may begin to steadily adapt to the new normal.”
*** To learn more about NousLogic Telehealth RPM & NousLogic Healthcare HHT & Contact Tracing:
NousLogic Telehealth: https://www.nousrpm.com/
NousLogic Healthcare: https://www.nouslogichc.com/
NousLogic: http://nouslogic.com/
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7urfKlw8T_U&feature=youtu.be
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Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/05/27/coronavirus-endemic/
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Connect with reporter: [email protected]
