Instant vitals: at your fingertips

South African company UC-Wireless has launched Instant Vitals – a smart mobile-based app that provides advanced healthcare, risk, wellness and Covid-19 screening for business staff, clients and personal users.

The app screens for the main symptoms of Covid-19 and measures various vital signs – including oxygen saturation, heart rate and respiratory rate – using a mobile phone’s camera and Artificial Intelligence (AI) incorporated into the app.

Several reviews, studies and reports, including a report from the World Health Organization, state that temperature measurement alone is ineffective in detecting a possible Covid-19 infection. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, believes: “The more you actually understand this virus, the more you begin to know that temperature taking is not effective at all.”

Asymptomatic patients don’t reveal symptoms and aren’t aware of an infection. There’s proof that the critical early warning signs of Covid-19 include a reduction in oxygen saturation (below 95%), and/or a high resting heart rate (above 100 beats per minute), or an increase in respiratory rate (above 20 breaths per minute) in a resting person – all of which are measured by Instant Vitals.

Once individual and organisation licences are purchased and registered on the app, Instant Vitals generates a unique encrypted QR code for each person’s device for screening. When the QR code is scanned, and the symptom questionnaire completed, the vital signs are measured.

The information captured is kept private. The only data made available publicly is the person’s risk status at the point of entry, when their QR code or mobile number (for visitors) is provided for screening.

The risk status of screened individuals is flagged as green (healthy), amber (caution; vital signs and/or symptoms are not normal but are not high risk) or red (one or more vital signs and/or symptoms indicate a risk which should be referred for medical attention or diagnosis).

The app also shows a critical status – an extreme red status, meaning that urgent medical treatment should be sought by the individual, based on the vital signs measured and symptoms analysed by the app. Those whose risk results are red or critical status should be referred for Covid-19 testing.

“There are so many benefits for personal and multi-person entry screening using the Instant Vitals app,” explains Quentin Daffarn, managing director of UC-Wireless. “Because it detects key vital signs, which indicate risks as early as possible, it can minimise the risk of cross-infection and consequences such as business downtime, loss of skills and sales.

“The app caters for mass QR code scanning by individuals who screen at home. It also enables screening for visitors and staff without phones at corporate offices, restaurants, retail stores, hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, public transport facilities, schools, universities, airports, industrial sites and mines, amongst others.”

Two licence options (a personal app and business screening verifier app, including the dashboard) are available. The app can be accessed from the Apple iStore and Google Play store. The licences will initially be available via resellers and partners of UC-Wireless across Africa and abroad.