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Fighting the War on COVID-19  

Fighting the War on COVID-19: Revolutionizing Contact Tracing with Data-Driven Technologies  

By Praduman Jain, Founder and CEO, Vibrent Health 

The war on COVID-19 is in full force. While doctors and nurses are on the front lines, technology and data are behind the scenes proving to be invaluable weapons in this fight. As pharmaceutical companies strive to develop an approved vaccine, contact tracing plays a vital role in reopening the country, rebooting the economy, saving businesses, protecting at-risk industries and helping get America back to normal as fast as possible.  
 
I am thrilled to announce that the NIH has awarded Vibrent Health a contract to expand and enhance our Digital Health Solutions Platform to develop Wi-Fi-enabled contact tracing designed to protect individuals from exposure to COVID-19 and to assist society with the return to normalcy. With this latest NIH contract, Vibrent will create a next-generation contact-tracing technology solution that combines the best of science and technology to enhance the public health response to the pandemic. This is especially important for populations at higher risk of exposure, such as essential workers and racial and ethnic minorities, who have been disproportionally affected by the virus. 

Contact Tracing – The Current Landscape  

Contact tracing slows the spread of COVID-19 by helping to protect individuals, family members and communities by alerting people who may have been exposed, advising action on how they should monitor their health for signs and symptoms of COVID-19 and recommending if they should self-quarantine or get tested.  

The work contact tracers are doing today to help with the pandemic is nothing short of heroic. However, they are faced with many challenges due to labor-intensive and manual processes. While there have been efforts to help automate and digitize this process, many are focused solely on Bluetooth-enabled technology, which is limited in its scale. What’s more, this approach only allows for short-range communications and requires end users to manually configure settings, making it inconsistent and less reliable.  

The Data-Driven Difference  

Vibrent Health’s data-driven approach is different – the security, stability and depth of Vibrent Health’s scientifically validated platform enhances contact-tracing efforts by making use of networking data collected from already existing Wi-Fi infrastructures that are pre-installed on most smart devices.  

Vibrent Health’s technology development will focus on the following capabilities: 

  • Intelligent, data-driven algorithms

    Vibrent Health will layer its machine learning algorithms over existing, pre-installed Wi-Fi infrastructures on most smart devices and can harmonize anonymous data already flowing through it. 

  • Cloud-based automation

    Vibrent Health’s cloud-based platform automates certain tasks and alerts, immediately sending information to investigators, public health practitioners and users, allowing for the potential to enable contact tracing on a larger scale for communities, universities, facilities, event venues, and more. Alerts can provide prescriptive actions and next steps, as well as more accessible and referenceable information to make informed health decisions.

  • Broad data sources

    Vibrent Health brings years of deep expertise and experience aggregating and harmonizing data from multiple access points. When applied to contact tracing, capabilities will include enterprise Wi-Fi, local mobile phone Wi-Fi, proximity data, diagnostic and testing data, and user interaction data through wearables and user-reported surveys

  • Enhanced privacy protections

    Vibrent Health’s existing, best-in-class security measures will continue to keep individual data private, secure and uncompromised. By using existing Wi-Fi infrastructures, Vibrent Health’s approach will not add additional layers of surveillance since all devices will automatically connect to Wi-Fi access points that routinely collect anonymous information.

Data: Our Biggest Weapon Against COVID-19 

The lynchpin of winning against COVID-19 is fast-scaling scientifically validated tools that can bring the benefit of technology to the battle. Vibrent Health is utilizing data-driven approaches to help people make better health decisions and help society return to normal faster, especially for more vulnerable populations. As the world seeks validated science to combat COVID-19, we are proud to continue our work to make a significant impact on the fight against coronavirus. Vibrent takes our role in this fight seriously, and we will keep doing our part until we ultimately win the war.