New ‘game changing’ app to manage coronavirus at Jewish General Hospital

The app was made in collaboration by Tel Aviv company and a Montreal health technology firm. It is thought to be the first app in the world made for this purpose, though it was not designed specifically for coronavirus.

The app will be used by the Jewish General Hospital in three main ways. By next week, triage nurses hope to be using the app to screen new ER patients without having to make physical contact with them. The app will measure respiratory rate, heart rate and oxygen saturation in the patients blood as it is held up to their face.

The second way the app will be used at the hospital will be in its coronavirus wards. Patients will be equipped with the app so they are able to monitor their vital signs in their rooms. This is intended to allow nurses to enter rooms less often, resulting in less use of personal protective equipment.

The third way the app can help is by being downloaded by patients located in Montreal’s west end where a high number of coronavirus cases are being reported. The app will allow people to keep an eye on their symptoms while they are at home.

The app is being tested by the hospital and after seeing positive results they shared the app with the Quebec Health Ministry. The provincial government is thinking of using the technology throughout the province.

The app does not diagnose users with coronavirus, but monitors vital signs. Developers of the app believe it could have helped to slow down the spread of the virus if it was used earlier in the year.

Sheldon Elman, chairman of Carebook Technologies Inc. and a staff physician at the hospital said, “People would have been monitoring themselves. Some of the early signs of COVID infection are an accelerated heart rate and an elevated respiratory rate. Those two are early clinical indications that there’s something going on.”

Dr. Lawrence Rosenberg of the hospital noted that the app could be a game changer.

“It should allow us to pick up people who are virus-positive but who have subtle or early symptoms that we wouldn’t be able to pick up previously until they came to an emergency room,” he explained.

“Whether it’s May 4 — a week earlier or a week later — people will have to start coming out,” Rosenberg said. “That will be a time when having the app widely available will be useful because people can then start screening themselves for things like O2 saturation and their respiratory rate. Then (some) will either go back into isolation or go to the emergency room. But it will keep them off the street and should mitigate the second wave, in principle.”

“Even if it helps a little, that’s significant because of how contagious the virus is,” he added. “It’s not a linear transmission. It’s an exponential transmission. So if you can interrupt the transmission in just one person, you’ll probably stop four or five others from getting it.”

The app has been successfully tested on 13,000 people and requires an iPhone 8 or up. It can also be used on Samsung models 7 and higher. It does not use facial recognition or take a picture of the user.

Dr. Elman said, “We are not a screening tool for COVID, We are a screening tool for vital signs, which then in certain situations can tell you whether a change in your vital signs could indicate a deterioration that could be very much COVID-related.”

Carebook has been working with Jewish General to fine-tune the app and has applied to Health Canada to approve the technology. Rosenburg noted that it will be used by the hospital regardless, due to the exceptional circumstances.