Vera Smart Healthcare launches Traveller Tracking System and iMASQ with AI for COVID-19 quarantine and non-COVID-19 services

Traveller Tracking System (TTS) successfully screened 750 passengers in just 90 mins at the Secunderabad railway station. Going forward, it will monitor all ports of entry to Telangana, and will soon be deployed at Hyderabad airport

Hyderabad-based startup Vera Smart Healthcare has launched “Traveller Tracking System” (TTS) to screen railways, bus stations, Hyderabad airport and will soon cover all district borders of entry to Telangana, to track and monitor coronavirus contacts. Recently, the company commenced ‘iMASQ’ (Intelligent Monitoring Analysis Services Quarantine) with artificial intelligence (AI) services for COVID-19 surveillance in containment zones. These are collaboration initiatives with the Government of Telangana to have an effective public health management strategy.

“Traveller Tracking System” (TTS) began at Secunderabad railway station early this week. As of now, the station has 500 travellers alighting every day. As these travellers alight, they get screened to record each one’s travel history, symptoms, positive contacts, if any and home address. All the information is then geotagged and shared with the district administration as well as with individual police stations to enable home quarantine the traveller, if no symptoms are found, or to immediately hospitalise the person if symptoms are detected.

Vera is also planning to deploy its staff in each district check posts for effective screening, and to cover all entry ports in Telangana now.

Recently, Vera also launched iMASQ Hybrid Healthcare service on Wheels in Telangana to deal with COVID-19 quarantine and non-COVID-19 monitoring services. A first-of-its-kind in India, iMASQ is a multipurpose AI unit which can provide medication stock, swab collection facility, remote consultation, monitoring, tracking results, lab space and an inhouse quarantine berth with ventilator facilities for containment zones.

Announcing the purpose of TTS and iMASQ with AI services, Dr G Srinivas Rao, Director – Public Health, Government of Telangana, said, “For the days to come, we are prepared for any volume of a surge in cases by using most powerful and cost-effective surveillance technology to avoid every case being shifted to hospitals. We continuously track, quarantine and isolate the patients in their homes, and monitor through live video, audio, vitals and GPS surveillance to ensure safety to frontline workers.”

Dharma Teja Nukarapu, Founder and CEO, Vera Smart HealthCare, said “This is a real-time solution to deal with life-treating conditions, limited medical access and infra hard-pressed regions. Currently, our TTS is tracking and monitoring Secunderabad railway station and we will soon cover all entry ports in Telangana.

About iMASQ, he added, “contamination in hospitals has become uncontrollable but moving the system to mobile units makes it easier to control contamination with entry restrictions and tech surveillance. Our aim is to make people live normally post lock-down era as well,” Dharma said.

Customised as per each state’s requirement, the recently launched “iMASQ Hybrid Healthcare on Wheels” currently has two on-site doctors, two nurses, two pharmacists, four ASHA ANM workers and two lab technicians to cover 3,000 – 10,000 houses within a radius of three kilometeres. Up to 100 virtual doctors will be on standby to take care of these zone needs, health workers will only visit the attention needed house indicated by the IMASQ, thus bringing in more productivity and safety to frontline workers.

Besides helping and monitoring COVID patients, the important aspect of iMASQ services are, it can be of major help to ante-natal and post-natal patients, patients with chronic illness, offer to check and monitor health profiles, symptoms, vitals, biometric authentication and other past and existing health conditions. The intelligence system built-in these buses are capable to report, analyse data and provide call-to-action for events from each location where it serves.

While the Central Government and state governments are poised to ease the lockdown and are laying the foundation to ensure a smooth transition from lockdown to normalcy post-COVID era, governments anticipate a substantial shortage of resources and a situation wherein health workers are continuously exposed to the virus which may affect the healthcare system. Vera’s solutions are meant to address and solve the dependency on hospitals and empower frontline workers to work efficiently, reducing their risk of contact.

Keeping all needs and requirements of different states in mind, Vera Smart Healthcare plans to introduce TTS and iMASQ across 10 states in India, the immediate plans are to activate Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

Earlier, during COVID-19 sprout, Vera Smart HealthCare had developed and helped the Government of Telangana to deploy the COVID-19 monitoring app to empower health callers to handle over 1,500 calls every day. The app was developed in a record time of just three days.