AI-Powered Smartphone App Offers Coronavirus Risk Assessment

A smartphone app coupled with artificial intelligence and machine intelligence will increase access to at-home COVID-19 risk assessments, which will help provide health officials with real-time information to better target potential COVID-19 patients, according to experts from the Medical College of Georgia. 

The report featured in the Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology said that the app will direct individuals most “at-risk” of having COVID-19 to officials who will also be able to see emerging demographics of vulnerable patients to enhance prevention and treatment initiatives.  

“We wanted to help identify people who are at high risk for coronavirus, help expedite their access to screening and to medical care and reduce spread of this infectious disease,” Arni SR Srinivasa Rao, MD, the study’s corresponding author and director of the laboratory for theory and mathematical modeling in the MCG division of infectious diseases at Augusta University. 

The app will ask individuals questions such as where they live, their gender, age, and race, as well as about any recent contact with someone who has or had coronavirus or any recent travel history. It will also ask about common symptoms of COVID-19 such as fever, cough, shortness of breath, fatigue, sputum production, headache, diarrhea, and pneumonia.

For those individuals unable to fill out their own survey, the app will feature a collection of similar questions for a friend or relative to fill out on their behalf. 

Artificial intelligence will use an algorithm to rapidly assess the individual’s information, send them a risk assessment, and alert the nearest facility with testing ability that a health check is necessary. A mobile check will be arranged if the patient is unable to travel. 

“The collective information of many individuals will aid rapid and accurate identification of geographic regions, including cities, counties, towns, and villages, where the virus is circulating, and the relative risk in that region so healthcare facilities and providers can better prepare resources that may be needed,” Rao voiced. 

Investigators also highlighted that the app will help them learn more about how the virus is spreading, which is vital to gaining control over the continuing outbreak. 

Rao and co-author Jose Vazquez MD, chief of the MCG division of infectious diseases, are currently working with developers to finalize the app. It will be free and is expected to be public within a few weeks.

The experts said that although some of the symptoms are broad and may not be connected to COVID-19, they must test all possibilities to ensure accurate assessments of patients and avoid missing any possible cases.

“We are trying to decrease the exposure of people who are sick to people who are not sick,” Vazquez said. “We also want to ensure that people who are infected get definitive diagnosis and get the supportive care they may need.” 

The World Health Organization (WHO) deemed the virus as a pandemic earlier this week, which is defined by the organization as the worldwide spread of a new disease where people are exposed to a virus to which they have no immunity.

“This is what you have to do with pandemics,” said Vazquez. “You don’t want to expose an infected person to an uninfected person. If problems with infections persist and grow, drive-thru testing sites may be another need.” 

A mass of individuals in hospitals and emergency rooms will overwhelm facilities and increase potential exposure for others who go in for testing. The FDA has given permission to more sophisticated labs, such as Augusta University Medical Center, to use their own methods to look for COVID-19 symptoms. 

Experts hope the app will calm public fears over the pandemic as this readily available method will quickly and effectively assess an individual’s risk. 

“People will not have to wait for hospitals to screen them directly,” said Rao. “We want to simplify people’s lives and calm their concerns by getting information directly to them.”