Anil Kumar Buna, a 25-year-old chattered accountant living in J.P. Nagar 7th phase, was surprised when an ambulance arrived at his doorstep within three hours of getting a positive result for COVID-19 in the latter half of July.
He expected a long and tension-ridden waiting time given the experience of many who had contracted the virus in the earlier months.
Recently, although the number of COVID-19 cases are on the rise, several people who tested positive in Bengaluru and needed medical assistance, say they have been able to receive a relatively quick response from the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to reach the hospital if needed.
An analysis by the BBMP War Room, which has developed the Index Application, states that the response time has become quicker after the introduction of this application.
Access to information
Hephsiba Rani Korlapati, BBMP war room special officer, said that the index application helps access information on cases from the ICMR portal, provides it to the zonal command centres and all field teams for action and implementation of tasks.
“This application helps the civic body shift patients either to the hospital, COVID-19 Care Centres based on symptoms, arranging ambulances and tracking the health condition of the patient. We have reduced the response time to near real-time. Index Application has achieved this at a time when numbers surged 10-fold at Bengaluru,” she said.
Patients with co-morbidities
The response time for patients with comorbidities has been reduced drastically. According to the data, 80% of 2,738 patients with co-morbidities have been attended to on the same day, between July 1 to August 15. Around 20% of the cases have delays of one day or more, while there have been delays of two days or more in 2% of the cases.
The war room analysis also shows that overall, 75% of all the cases are attended to on the same day even though the case load had increased 30 times in July. After the State government saw these results, Chief Secretary T.M. Vijay Bhaskar shared the document regarding this application and wrote to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs that it would facilitate peer-to-peer learning among smart cities.
