MD City Integrates Telehealth With Smart City Hub to Monitor Coronavirus

A tiny community of about 5,000 in Maryland is ground zero for an ambitious telehealth project aimed at using smart community concepts to monitor and manage the Coronavirus pandemic.

(For more coronavirus updates, visit our resource page, updated twice daily by Xtelligent Healthcare Media.)

Seat Pleasant, which bills itself as “the world’s first authentic small smart city” is partnering with Amazon, Sprint, EagleForce and Freedmen’s Health – a Washington DC-based care provider - on a $200 million “nationwide disease surveillance and chronic disease management telehealth system.” The program will use telemedicine platforms and mHealth tools to monitor local residents, with plans to branch out to cover the surrounding region and the state.

"This is about saving lives," Seat Pleasant Mayor Eugene W. Grant said during a March 22 press conference announcing the program. "This is about getting access to those who wouldn't easily have access to information. This is about making certain that we have social justice in everything that we do, and that every segment of our community is important. We work for the people."

The program will integrate with Seat Pleasant’s current smart city platform, called the Smart City Hub. EagleForce’s telehealth platform will enable city officials to connect the MimiRX mHealth app to the network, allowing residents access to a portal where they can access prescription data and other resources and connect with telehealth physician group that specializes in geriatric care and disease management.

The program will also provide telehealth tablets, mHealth devices (including temperature monitors) and Internet access to those who need it, particularly the elderly and low-income residents. Free Internet will be available with the tablets for a year.

"The plan will provide direct telehealth access to those who need it, even if they do not have broadband access in their home," Grant said during the press conference. "The system operates on the Sprint cellular network and is preloaded to deliver remote monitoring services as well as telehealth. This will enable every at-risk resident to receive immediate medical attention and monitoring for the duration of their emergency."

City officials say the program will scale up quickly when established.

“The vast capacity of the EagleForce Platform will be available to expand to serve the needs of older adults beyond Seat Pleasant and throughout Prince George’s County and the entire State of Maryland by providing a robust disease monitoring and Telehealth delivery model to address high-risk seniors and provide the necessary technology tools for low-income persons that do not have internet or technology hardware access,” the city said in a press release.