Thiruvananthapuram: After shelving the controversy-ridden Sprinklr project, the Kerala government is now planning ‘Coronasafe Network’ to obtain real-time information for COVID-19 management in the state.
The open source platform will provide, among other things, details of patients at hospitals. It will be under the supervision of the Health Department and the Disaster Management Authority.
Amid the growing number of COVID cases, real-time information on empty beds in private hospitals, the status of ICUs, and availability of ventilators and ambulances will be crucial and the platform will help keep a tab on them, said an order issued by chief secretary Viswhas Mehta.
‘Coronasafe’ was developed by a volunteer group of public health experts, software engineers and government officials. The group did a trial run of the solution in Ernakulam district. It also demonstrated the platform to the state Crisis Management Group and obtained its approval.
The data used by the solution will be under the health department. Moreover, the data will be stored only on those servers that are on the central government’s empanelled list.
The state will form core teams in districts under the respective collectors to implement the solution. Also, staff at private hospitals and ambulance drivers will be provided training on using it.
The Kerala government faced a lot of flak after it emerged that the state had signed a deal with a US-based company Sprinklr to manage health-related data of people amid the COVID-19 outbreak in the state.
The opposition had alleged that the state government had put the privacy of people’s data at risk by signing the deal with the company run by a Keralite Ragi Thomas.
The government had defended the deal saying it was free and that the data would help it fight the COVID outbreak effectively. However, amid growing controversy, it was forced to end the deal.
