The second wave of COVID19 has indiscriminately affected India. Even the most developed cities and towns struggled to cope as hospitals were inundated with patients, diagnostic labs were jammed up with processing COVID19 tests and civic administration officials were faced with a cascading health crisis. With the disease presenting itself in varying ways and across multiple timelines across the country, local municipal bodies like BMC in Mumbai and BBMP in Bangalore stepped up their efforts. Largescale collaborative efforts with tech companies, NGOs, healthcare workers, hospitals, research institutes, diagnostic labs, support groups and vendors have formed a crucial element to state-centric COVID response, and this is being aided by technology.

This is a crisis of epic proportions. A pandemic of this magnitude took place more than a century ago. What's different is the enhanced levels of awareness and the proliferation of technologies like AI to assist in crisis management.

ITC Infotech, a leading global technology services and solutions provider and a fully owned subsidiary of ITC Ltd, has collaborated with Bangalore's municipal management body Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to fast track development and deployment of technology solutions to efficiently manage the administration of COVID19 tests and swab collections. 

"Going forward, this data and other rich data sources can be collated to further build dashboards to track and analyse vital COVID19 related data that can span from ICU beds, oxygen, test availability, medicines, ambulances and other critical needs."

This project is being helmed by a group of senior leaders of ITC Infotech, led by Sundaresh Shankaran, president – CPG & Manufacturing at ITC Infotech. In an exclusive conversation with INDIAai, senior leaders from ITC Infotech in addition to Shankaran like Debjyoti Paul, President of Digital Experience and Shyam Ananthnarayan, Chief Marketing Officer, spoke about their efforts in aiding local authorities support citizens more effectively and how their solutions are ripe for implementing several AI and ML-based applications in the future.

Innovating To Manage COVID19 Since 2020

This isn't the first COVID19 project that ITC Infotech has dedicated its efforts toward. Last year, the company collaborated with an inter-disciplinary team of researchers from Johns Hopkins University to enhance the UI/UX of their COVID Control surveillance tool on self-reported body temperatures and other related symptoms, driven by spatial science analytics. ITC Infotech's efforts were concentrated in making this app more user-friendly and effective in retaining the focus on tracking emerging COVID19 clusters. Back home in Bangalore, ITC Infotech developed an innovative cloud based COVID-19 BCP Cockpit solution for real time decision making. The solution provides real-time visibility across customer health, employee productivity, resource allocation, services and support, and delivery status – enabling real-time and integrated visibility into IT operations across various metrics and KPIs.

So, when they chanced upon the opportunity to assist BBMP manage the second surge that began earlier this year, Shankaran and his team couldn't say no. "One of our core values is to leverage our technological expertise to drive change and help society, especially in this hour of need." One of the biggest challenges BBMP was facing this time was conducting COVID19 tests across the city, and integrating these results for centralised access to make real-time decisions on next steps. Easing swab testing and collection would be an incremental first step to freeing up resources and taking the load off diagnostic labs. An app is being developed by the authorities that can direct an incoming request for a test to the nearest test collection facility, following which the test could be administered with ease. Citizens can even use this app to register themselves for a test, making it easy for the testing centres to track every test administered and provide regular updates to the users. This app could also mitigate the challenges posed by delayed or missing test samples.

The dashboard analytics, as Shankaran admits, is one that is intentionally built to be pliable with changing needs. The virus is like a moving target, and the resources needed to address the challenges it poses change every few weeks. Currently, the dashboard can track the swab collection tests across the multiple municipal wards in Bangalore, providing multiple types of data that experts can leverage for future research.

"We anticipate that the needs pertaining to managing this virus will change, and our dashboard's resiliency reflects just that. For now, we have addressed the low-hanging but crucial issue of swab collection," says Shankaran.

How AI and ML Can Leverage All This City-Wide Data

The possibilities are endless, says Debjyoti Paul, Head of Digital Experience at ITC Infotech, as they're just about scratching the surface when it comes to delving into the potential of AI and machine learning to elevate the utility of these apps and dashboards. "Citizen support is a key challenge for municipal authorities while trying to manage the spread of the infection. This can be achieved by deploying easily scalable tech solutions." For instance, if a person tests positive for COVID19 after taking an RT-PCR test, a central helpline called Aptha Mitra will call the patient to inform them of their result and provide them details like a BU number and SRF ID - essential for procuring a hospital bed if needed. But this system is under strain, given the number of calls the helpline volunteers have to make daily. Not only does this add to their workload, but needlessly adds to the stress of citizens anxiously awaiting test results. This is a prime use case for the deployment of a bot, delivered to citizens via WhatsApp. Instant messaging platforms can not only deliver test results and other data, but also provide vital information to citizens on preventive steps to take regarding self care.

The second wave also showed the massive gap in demand and supply of essential supplies like oxygen, ICU beds and medicines among others. Prior analysis of test data can allow authorities to plan for surges in demand for specific supplies. Eventually, administrations can utilise the data collected over different time periods to understand the movement of the population in a geographic area, determine infection trajectory and help governments build definitive action plans.

Robustness Of Tech Stack & Data Security Key Factors To Consider As Data Grows

Shankaran adds, "A unified response spanning the tech sector, government, healthcare providers and all stakeholders in the value chain is absolutely essential. This is how we can all benefit from technology." Paul adds, "With nationwide inoculation the next top priority, dashboard data of tests can also be utilised to map vaccination drives more effectively."

As tech platforms grow with data, the need of the hour is to harness more volunteers, focus on making the tech stack more robust and embedding security measures to protect citizen health data.