Worried About Coronavirus? Now You Can Text Message A Chatbot With Questions

First, wash your hands. Then, pick up the phone. 

Two telemedicine startups are working together on a program that allows worried patients to text their concerns about the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, to a chatbot that can link them to remote doctors. The goal is to help them avoid waiting in crowded clinics that may increase the risk of infection for them and for healthcare providers. 

The full Forbes article can be viewed at this link.  

BOSTON, March 10, 2020 - Orion Health has developed the first comprehensive pandemic outbreak monitoring platform to alleviate demand on health systems and reduce the risk of further spread of the COVID-19 virus. The Orion Health software that supports this will be offered at no cost to existing and future customers.

As the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases grow globally, especially in those countries currently in the community outbreak phase of the disease, there will be a need for more people to receive support at home. Read the full press release at the link below. 

Coronavirus could financially cripple many Americans

Americans’ health may not be the only thing at stake as the coronavirus continues its unrelenting spread in the U.S. The virus could also prove financially crippling for many individuals.

“There are all kinds of pathways for people to be financially affected by this,” said John Graves, an associate professor of health policy at Vanderbilt University.

There are more than 114,000 confirmed cases across more than 100 countries and regions. The U.S. has more than 750 confirmed cases of COVID-19 — the name of the disease — and at least 26 Americans have died.

The full CNBC article can be viewed at this link.  

Trump signs $8.3B emergency coronavirus package

President Donald Trump today signed the $8.3 billion emergency funding package Congress swiftly cleared, triggering the flow of cash to federal agencies and states working to combat a rising number of COVID-19 cases in the U.S.

The bill provides a total of $7.7 billion in new discretionary spending and authorizes an additional $490 million in mandatory spending through a Medicare change.

The full Politico article can be viewed at this link.  

Coronavirus could be a boon for telemedicine, as health industry hopes to keep ‘worried well’ out of the hospital

As the COVID-19 cases continue to spread across the U.S., hospitals and insurance companies are expecting a swell in visitors to clinics and emergency rooms.

But the crisis could provide a bright spot for one sector of the health industry that has struggled to gain widespread acceptance: Telemedicine.

Virtual services, like online symptom-checking tools and remote consults with doctors, could keep the so-called “worried well” from flooding hospitals. If the healthiest people don’t show up in emergency rooms, that could mean that more resources are available to treat the sickest and most vulnerable patients. 

The full CNBC article can be viewed at this link.  

Insurers promise to cover coronavirus tests, relax coverage policies

A major health insurance trade group is pledging its member plans will cover doctor-ordered testing for the coronavirus amid rising confusion and concern about who will bear the cost of care in an outbreak.

America’s Health Insurance Plans made the commitment Thursday, although it's still unclear when insurers might have to start paying for tests. So far, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has picked up the tab for COVID-19 testing. The cost picture is expected to become more complicated as more private labs and academic medical centers launch their own testing. Thursday alone, commercial labs Quest Diagnostics, LabCorp and BioReference Laboratories announced they'd launch testing for the virus.

The full Politico article can be viewed at this link.  

Preparing for Coronavirus to Strike the U.S.

As the new human coronavirus spreads around the world, individuals and families should prepare—but are we? The Centers for Disease Control has already said that it expects community transmission in the United States, and asked families to be ready for the possibility of a “significant disruption to our lives.”

Be ready? But how? It seems to me that some people may be holding back from preparing because of their understandable dislike of associating such preparation with doomsday or “prepper” subcultures. Another possibility is that people may have learned that for many people the disease is mild, which is certainly true, so they don’t think it’s a big risk to them. Also, many doomsday scenarios advise extensive preparation for increasingly outlandish scenarios, and this may seem daunting and pointless (and it is). Others may not feel like contributing to a panic or appearing to be selfish.

Forget all that. Preparing for the almost inevitable global spread of this virus, now dubbed COVID-19, is one of the most pro-social, altruistic things you can do in response to potential disruptions of this kind.

Best Practices

1. Get a flu shot - The flu shot helps decrease the odds of having to go to the hospital for the flu, or worse yet, get both flu and COVID-19; comorbidities drastically worsen outcomes.
2. Stock up on supplies -Stock up supplies at home so that you can stay home for two or three weeks, going out as little as possible.
3. Help people stay at home - If you are in a position of authority, that means figuring out how to help people stay at home, by preparing for and allowing for remote work, or allowing for future work to make up for missed days and other similar plans.
4. Keep your hands clean - Washing your hands often, using alcohol-based hand-sanitizer liberally and learning not to touch your face are the most important clinically-proven interventions there are.
5. Keep a reserve of prescriptions and medications - If you need prescription or other medications, it’s a good idea to stock up if possible—if for no other reason than to avoid pharmacies, both to reduce their burden and also to not be in the same line as people who may be ill.

The full Scientific American blog article can be viewed at this link.  

Robotic medicine may be the weapon the world needs to combat the coronavirus

With top government health officials warning it is only a matter of time before there is a COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S., it’s not likely that specialized masks and respirators, or canned goods and Clorox, will be sufficient to fight a global pandemic. Viral outbreaks like COVID-19 highlight the growing role new medical technology — in particular, ideas from the field of robotics — can play in fighting the spread of novel infectious diseases. But medical experts say it will be a mistake if innovation rolls out only when the world is on edge.

The full CNBC article can be viewed at this link.  

Can AI flag disease outbreaks faster than humans? Not quite

Did an artificial-intelligence system beat human doctors in warning the world of a severe outbreak of COVID-19 in China?

In a narrow sense, yes. But what the humans lacked in sheer speed, they more than made up in finesse.

Early warnings of disease outbreaks can help people and governments save lives. In the final days of 2019, an AI system in Boston sent out the first global alert about a new viral outbreak in China. But it took human intelligence to recognize the significance of the outbreak and then awaken response from the public health community.

What’s more, the mere mortals produced a similar alert only a half-hour behind the AI systems.

For now, AI-powered disease-alert systems can still resemble car alarms — easily triggered and sometimes ignored. A network of medical experts and sleuths must still do the hard work of sifting through rumors to piece together the fuller picture. It’s difficult to say what future AI systems, powered by ever larger datasets on outbreaks, may be able to accomplish.

The full AP News article can be viewed at this link.