The application Covidom was developed in record time by the organisation running the Paris public hospitals, in partnership with a Lyon company specialising in remote monitoring.
The app has been operational since 9 March, 2020 in two Paris hospitals.
How does the e-health app work?
Covidom (which is available on Google Play and the iOS store) sends a digital online questionnaire "once or several times a day", say the developers in a press release.
The patient can respond to the questionnaire from a computer or via the application. Depending on the answers, the application can send alerts.
A medical monitoring centre has been setting up since 12 March to monitor alerts. In case of emergency, the patient is asked to contact the emergency services.
Monitoring patients at home
As the epidemic increases in France, with 30,000 reported cases and 1,700 deaths on 27 March, according to Santé Publique France, hospitals and doctors' offices around Paris and in the north-east are overloaded.
The main objective of an application like Covidom "is to ensure remote telemonitoring of patients not requiring hospitalisation, without overloading the health facilities and general practitioners, allowing them to focus on patients in need," explains the Paris hospitals authority.
The Coronavirus pandemic has affected 542,000 people worldwide with 24,000 deaths, according to worldometers website.
