How Open-Source And AI Are Helping Brazil To Spot COVID-19

The arrival of COVID-19 brought complex challenges worldwide. In Latin America, precisely in Brazil, the worst pandemic seen in a century challenges states, cities, and public health care management. Recently, the country surpassed China in the total number of confirmed deaths

With cases expected to accelerate in Latin America’s biggest country, a question arises: How to provide healthcare services in Brazil without overloading the health system and reducing the pace of contagion?

To answer that question and propose a solution, Rocket.Chat, a Brazilian startup responsible for one of the main open-source communication hub partnered with Amazon and tech players, such as Ilhasoft, Elogroup, and Konecty to build a digital assistance platform for COVID-19.

How Does The Digital Assistance Platform Work?

Tested and licensed by Amazon, the platform follows international standards of data encryption and information. It uses Rocket.Chat’s open-source environment to help the Government in managing Covid-19 potential cases effectively in cities and states with a population of over 500 thousand residents.

30M People And Counting: The Social Impact Of AI And Open Source

Launched last February, the platform had a quick adoption and it is already functioning in states like Ceará, Bahia, Alagoas, and Espírito Santo. 30 million people are expected to be impacted by the solution.

No Need For Digital Proficiency Nor Public Data

Since the platform can be adapted according to the resources and preferences of each city, it doesn’t require any other data besides the state or city hall number for the purpose of being contacted by residents.

Quick Implementation

In addition, the implementation period is brief: it takes only 5 days for the server to be up and running. After implementing the platform, States and Municipalities disclose a service number via Whatsapp, Facebook, or inserting the live chat feature at their websites. Through Rocket.chat's omnichannel feature, people can reach out to the platform and speak with Bela, the virtual assistant in the form of a bot.

Bella, The Digital Assistant That Guides Brazilians

By using an AI bot named Bela, the multichannel platform offers assistance for Brazilian residents to do screening, guidance, and teleconsultations. Developed in accordance with protocols from WHO and Unicef, a script with questions is performed by the bot to classify each person's symptoms and categorize each case's level of risk.

When the symptoms are critical, a human assistant takes over the case and does a new screening. If the necessity of seeing a doctor is perceived, then the patient receives a link by email to schedule his teleconsultation.

The teleconsultation takes place within Rocket.Chat's environment and each case recorded. The CRM created by Konecty receives key-information for auditing, internal controls, and secure storage in accordance with data protection and privacy laws. The service has the capacity to answer more than 100,000 queries and is completely scalable if necessary.

Main Benefits Of Using The Tele-Consultation Platform

• Monitor the spread of COVID-19 in Brazil
• Instruct citizens about symptoms and treatment programs nearby
• ️Support public managers to organize health equipment in face-to-face cases
• ️Ensure social distancing by connecting doctors to people to  treat urgent cases
• ️Provide dashboards and reports of risk analysis by micro-region allowing quicker decision answers

"The platform helps administrators in strategic management by situational analysis at a micro-level by providing useful insights, predictions, and the capability to integrate with various other systems". Gabriel Engel, CEO of Rocket.Chat

Results Achieved: How The Brazilin Experience Is Being So Far

Thanks to the platform and its CRM integrated, daily reports are being produced to local committees in doer to help governors or mayors to oversee the evolution of of the pandemic in their area. Comprehensive dashboards to monitor the scenarios are provided, which allow them to generate welcoming campaigns by micro-region, for instance.

In terms of general satisfaction, the platform is already receiving great feedback in the first area to have the platform 100% implemented and in use, Ceará, one of the earliest states to adopt it:

In the state of Ceará, we’ve been in operation for a few weeks and we’ve reached almost 3 thousand calls a day, with an 8.5 (out of 10) level of satisfaction of people using the service through Whatsapp. Direct service with health specialists through chat or video call reached a satisfaction level of 9.4. Leandro Coletti, Head of Revenue at Rocket.Chat

Rocket.Chat expects to have new feedbacks from other places soon - such as Bahia, Alagoas, and other areas transitioning to start using the platform soon. For detailed information, please read an overview of the platform here.

Conclusion

Open source projects are born to be collaborative - it's simply in their DNA. However, in challenging times like these, we realize the relevant role they can play, truly impacting society. We foresee numerous benefits of projects like that, especially in underdeveloped countries like Brazil.

Author:

Lucia Fallavena | Content Analyst at Rocket.Chat