Data fed into ‘Health Watch’ mobile app to create database for future to prevent pandemics

Mysore/Mysuru: The Mysuru District Administration has started a massive door-to-door survey to gather data on people with Influenza-Like Illness (ILI) and Severe Acute Respiratory Illness (SARI) and to check on the health status of patients with existing conditions such as non-communicable diseases, TB and AIDS and pregnant women. The exercise is being done for early detection of COVID-19 cases.

The data collected will be fed into the ‘Health Watch’ mobile app. Health surveyors can upload the details they collect directly through their smartphones or they can enter the data on the mobile phones of Booth-Level Officers (BLO) or Revenue Department officials deployed in the survey.

The door-to-door survey has been launched at all the 2,687 election booth and two surveyors have been deputed to each booth. The BLO will be assisted by a teacher in each booth and the data is collected and uploaded in a prescribed COVID-19 format and later the data is uploaded on ‘Health Watch’.

Creating a strong database

Teachers working in Government and aided schools, ASHA, Anganwadi workers, Revenue and Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department employees and Auxiliary Nurse Midwives (ANMs) have been roped in to conduct the universal survey of all families across the district to identify individuals with health conditions. The survey is to collect all the details and help in controlling the COVID-19 spread. It would also provide a strong database which the District Administration can keep as a reference in the future.

The surveying team would collect the details of the house occupants including their age, dependants and their phone numbers. They will ask if there are anybody suffering from fever or any other health issues, anybody in the house who has returned from abroad recently and also if there is anyone who has come recently from other parts of the State or country too.

Focus on senior citizens

Special focus will be on to identify people above 60 years of age and age-related ailments like diabetes, blood pressure, respiratory illness. The survey team will also collect the details of the dependants of senior citizens, their addresses and contact details.

The reason behind deploying BLOs who are trained to update electoral rolls is to guarantee that every household mentioned in the electoral rolls is visited and contact details of the occupant of the house is entered in the register.

Simultaneously, ASHAs and ANMs along with teachers have been deployed to see the health condition of people, especially the high-risk category patients with underlying illnesses. On completion of the BLOs’ survey, patients with ILI and SARI will be taken to fever clinics and they will be tested for COVID-19, if required, officials said.

Efficiently trained

The training for the health survey to detect people with ILI, SARI and co-morbid conditions have been provided at the Zonal Offices of Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) and the surveyors have been trained to upload the data into ‘Health Watch’ app.

There are over 5,800 health surveyors in the 11 Assembly Constituencies of Mysuru District and the survey has been set in motion in all the election booths. In Krishnaraja Constituency, there are 223 booths, 213 in Chamaraja, 220 in Narasimharaja, 310 in Chamundeshwari, 257 in Varuna, 218 in T. Narasipur, 225 in Periyapatna Assembly segment, 248 in K.R. Nagar, 263 in Hunsur, 272 booths in H.D. Kote and 238 in Nanjangud Constituency taking the total to 2,687 booths.

“We are doing this so that we have a ready register of people with illness and symptoms and the Government can constantly check on their health,” officials said.