Animals & COVID-19 | Remote monitoring | Vaccine scheduling

NAVIGATING THE RECOVERY

Flyover Country fights the pandemic

A special report from:

RESEARCH

Animals and COVID

Image by A-photographyy for Shutterstock

Viruses are sometimes named for the animals from which they jump--"swine flu" and "bird flu." It is believed that the coronavirus started with bats and then jumped to other animals that transmitted the disease to humans.

The CDC estimates that 60% of known diseases, such as rabies, salmonella, West Nile virus and Lyme disease, can spread from animals.

Doctors at Ohio State University's College of Veterinary Medicine are continuing to look at animals in relation to COVID and increasing the importance of the study. The goal is to make sure COVID-19 doesn't infect an animal, mutate, and then jump back into the human population.

TOOLS & TECH

Remote monitoring for COVID patients

COVID patients at Blessing Hospital in Illinois who still have mild to low-risk symptoms can now be sent home with a remote patient monitoring kit that will provide them a more comfortable approach to recovery. The Cloud DX Connected Health Kit contains a tablet, a Bluetooth thermometer and pulse oximeter, and a blood pressure pump, allowing patients to safely keep in contact with a care coordinator.

Physicians can gather key vital signs from a patient on a daily basis and look for patterns that might suggest a patient is getting worse.

Not only will the practice, part of the Blessing Enhanced Road to Recovery Program, help those patients but it can also free up beds for the more seriously ill.

A vaccine and scheduling system called Vanilla

Des Moines-based Neapolitan Labs, web development, marketing, and advertising company, has created a vaccine and scheduling system that will serve public health entities. They’ve dubbed the system “VANILLA” (of course they did). The company has been partnering with Pottawattamie County’s public health department for a year to create the system.

Now Neapolitan is working on a system for collecting vaccine interest information in which users can go to the website and fill out information such as employer, location, etc., so the county can then sort the results, export them and send emails to people.

COVID data surveillance by county

A company in Indianapolis is using data to let people access their risk of COVID based on the county they live in. The company, hc1, has accumulated cloud-based data from over the U.S. for over 10 years but now is concentrating on COVID data. The goal is to let people know where the breakouts are happening.

In an article for wishtv, Dr. Peter J. Plantes, physician executive at hc1, likens the collection and surveillance of this data to The Battle of Britain during World War II. where radar was developed to “know where the planes were coming from so that they could send out their limited resources to meet the planes that were invading from Germany and meet them and defend the country.”

REACH OUT

Share stories, offer suggestions, or comment!