Unfortunately, ViRVi is not a solution for COVID-19 itself. However, ViRVi is quite useful in several important scenarios.
COVID-19 pandemic is a global challenge that requires an adequate software response. Specifically, it requires software to improve faster than virus spread.
VirVi is a set of hyper-agile emergency software, backed by a structured data lake, both provided by Quidgest, for epidemiologic global challenges like COVID-19.
VirVi is a modular Information System to support the monitoring and control of a virus epidemic, like COVID-19, in any country or region, for different scenarios, in an emergency timeframe (that is, starting operating in hours).
VirVi modules are easy to use, focused on this specific challenge, available in real-time, robust, reliable, and capable of continually evolving, forming the base for good critical management and communication facing virus epidemics.
VirVi is an entirely-web software, and web systems provide the necessary scale to monitor a virus pandemic. The web is much more scalable than a telephone tracking line and a web solution is accessible to all professionals, considering different levels of information access and respecting adequate levels of privacy.
VirVi is a Digital Twin of the reality created by COVID-19. Any important information related to COVID-19 is reflected in VirVi.
This Digital Twin has been translated to distinct software modules, used for
VirVi is an evolutive set of software tools that emulates the immune system.
Against COVID-19, any data gap is a serious threat. A threat to people’s confidence in their leaders. A threat to the quality of public health policy decisions.
If the war room fighting the epidemic detects a threat (a data gap), either VirVi already has a leukocyte for it or it creates one, in the shortest time possible.
VirVi is supported by Artificial Intelligence, Models, and Automatic Generation.
This support, assured by Quidgest’s Genio, is to VirVi as vaccines are to the immune system. A powerful accelerator. Millions of lines of code are produced, in minutes, and spread through the web to the entire professional army fighting virus spread.
Inside you, a daily battle is being waged and your immune system is at the frontline. Most of the time, you may not even notice it’s there, but over the course of your life, your immune system will guard you against hundreds of potentially fatal threats.
VirVi is designed to continuously integrate ideas and be complemented by those who know about virology, medicine, epidemiology, chemistry, public health, equipment production, logistics, civil protection, migration control, quality tests, statistics, economics, and many other areas of knowledge.
What makes VirVi special is Quidgest’s unbeatable ability to develop focused information systems in a short timeframe. Probably, there is not, in the world, anyone who more quickly put into production an emergency web information software this complex. Note: our lack of humility ends here!
VirVi depends on – and interacts with – Expert Sourcing, the capacity of improving the knowledge base about fighting a specific virus spread, from a lot of different specialized perspectives.
Other software development timeframes do not cope with emergencies, even when they are called Agile. That’s why software is not usually considered as a part of an emergency war room, despite the extremely high value of Data for decision-makers.
VirVi is ambitious enough to enter the war room facing a virus pandemic.
You can’t prevent epidemics through isolation. You can only prevent them with information.
Yuval Harari | Historian, Philosopher, and Bestselling author
Data fight the virus and are our best weapon, at least until a vaccine or another effective cure is discovered.
Information is also crucial to avoid the totalitarian alternative. An omnipresent regime of surveillance is the only alternative to trustful information available to all citizens.
Information is needed for Action, not just for Observation.
Statistics are useful to describe what already happened. They are less useful to act in order to save lives in the future.
Knowledge is data in progress.
Although this is the regular approach, emergency systems must not follow long workflows, with centralized directives, with a set of (necessarily slow) steps of decision. Each stakeholder/decision-maker who enters this process is an obstacle to the speed of the decision.
VirVi is different. VirVi is Data-Centric and, therefore, Patient-Centric. To ensure proper behaviour, all stakeholders / decision-makers act in real-time based on the same data.
As an example, instead of wasting time trying to find a suitable bed for her patient and receiving a lot of negative answers, a Doctor posts the need and all healthcare facilities with available beds can respond. That means also full awareness of current bed capacity and related (cascaded) problems. If a bed available requires an ambulance journey, all ambulances are aware of this need. If no beds are available, bed providers are notified and answer accordingly. Simultaneously, not sequentially. Pulled by the resources available, not pushed by an allocation center.
Decision-makers and analysts act as curators of the data involved. They are attentive to anomalous situations, detect delays, require double-checking, establish redlines, are aware of available resources, for example.
Supported by qualified information, algorithms, and healthcare routines are continually being improved to give a framework of best practices, which are made available directly on the web or in Physician Support Lines. Such a system can have a wide scope and grow according to the objectives.
VIRVI monitors:
Data collection into VirVi, simultaneously introduced by a large number of professionals, is structured to normalize and streamline the use of the information collected, focused on this specific emergency.
Effectively, viruses are different and the most dangerous are entirely new, as it happens with COVID-19. The VirVi data structure is created for each virus global outbreak, considering also the healthcare system of the country, state, or region where it is implemented. Symptoms, therapeutics, equipment, training, almost everything depends on each pandemic. Demographics, healthcare organization, resources available, routines, all have large differences from one country to another. So VirVi offers a focused solution for each pair (country, virus).
VirVi can provide simple key indicators, statistics, and maps. However, VirVi is only responsible for collecting real-time required data, in a standard way, with a high level of quality, accuracy, and availability. There are lots of ways to present, compose, and extract great information from existing data. VirVi doesn’t aim to replace them. VirVi aims to be a reliable source of all the relevant data for analysis. If this reliable source is not available, GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out) rule applies.
As a GIGO example, during the current COVID-19 crisis, there is a lot of data about infected people, but no coherent information about the number of tests run by country. Thus, no comparison is consistent, no forecast is possible, and no decision is based on real facts.
Monitoring is far from enough to control virus spread.
Readiness for control depends also on data:
These are only some examples. Every day, a lot more challenges make the fight against a virus spread more difficult.
VirVi grants that, any time a new issue is detected, requiring new data, a web form is available to collect as much information as possible, as soon as possible. The same day. That’s VirVi hyper-agility.
Innovation matters. Entire healthcare (and civil protection) systems are doomed to failure if they are bound to deal with unusual extreme situations with usual resources and ways of thinking.
One of the VirVi modules deals with Innovation.
Examples of innovation issues VirVi works with are
A structure ready to receive new ideas and initiatives is crucial.
Experience from war rooms can be used to improve the implementation of game-changers. Disruptive innovation has a long tradition of winning wars. That’s also why innovation expands so much in times of war or major crises. VirVi is, on its own, a game-changer.
VirVi only fully achieves its purposes if this phase is fully accomplished.
Again, during this phase, until a vaccine or a cure is found, accurate Data is our best trump against COVID-19.
Several countries are now essaying to lift restrictions. The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued six criteria for countries considering relaxing their lockdowns.
At the eradication phase, VirVi
VirVi is proposed in the new DevOps logic, of continuous development, functional from day one, but with new versions whenever it is justified to improve (in the initial phase, with daily evolution).
Success requires support to the Quidgest team from Hospitals, Health Centers, Physicians, Nurses, Researchers, Labs, Pharmacists, Ministry of Health, Health Support Lines, Health Emergency Units, Civil Protection, Migration Control, Quality in Health, in working groups of variable configurations. It means a small core team that improves VirVi’s information system, quickly and successively contacting each of these entities and incorporating their different perspectives.
Beyond the solution, a team of Expert Genio developers assures the go-live in 24 hours and is ready for intensive improvements. They are highly competent professionals in this field and extremely productive (with productivity 100 times higher than that of a traditional professional developer).
From its beginning, 30 years ago, Quidgest has been applying Models and Artificial Intelligence to Software Development, through Genio.
Genio is particularly useful for Urgent Solutions, New or Unique Challenges, Daily-Changing Requirements, and Complex Systems. COVID-19 is all these.
