CoronaBoXX – Help Us to Help You – Together Against Corona!
The CentraXX Patient App with COVID-19 functionality focuses on the patient, relieves the clinical staff and enables the collection of study relevant health data.
Many of those diagnosed with COVID-19 do not require treatment in the hospital and can easily recover from home. Apart from traditional telephone contact there is no other option to complete patient data and transmit to the clinic for both treatment and for use in research.
This large number of patients could provide important and extensive information that would allow a quicker understanding of the disease progression. Communication between clinic and patient must be seamless and specific so that this data is not ‘digitally forgotten’ for both purposes of treatment and research.
This can be achieved by using an app that gives patients the opportunity to continuously document their state of health independently and without risk of personal contact. This data can then be used for medical research.
The good news is the CentraXX Patient App, which has been expanded to include COVID-19 functionality, is available for iOS and Android. It can be found on the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.
Following three field tests the App is now live and currently being used by patients.
The CentraXX Patient App with COVID-19 functionality is not a stand-alone solution but a central component of the research and supply infrastructure. With the help of the app, structured patient data flows into the CentraXX Clinical Trial Management Module (CTMS) of the CentraXX Research platform being used at the facility. By using a wide variety of interfaces to other clinic systems, the data of the app can be related to all known clinical data in the clinic, aggregated in the research file and made available in the CTMS. In addition, CentraXX offers the clinic and study staff additional functionalities such as direct integration of the study register including recruitment support.
The CoronaBoXX Patient App was developed in close collaboration with doctors from University Hospitals
The app collects demographic data and epidemiological factors of the patient as well as their information on previous illnesses and risk factors. Its main features are the symptom diary and the hygiene checklist.
The information collected from the patient is transmitted in real time to the study portal and immediately presented to the study staff in the CTMS module as well as researchers. With the use of the app, the patient receives an overview of their personal patient file which includes diagnostics and care data in addition to the detailed symptom diary related to their COVID-19 diagnosis. The patient receives access to any analysis results as well as consent information including the validity period and scope.
Data Protection / Data Security
The cached data is encrypted on the mobile device and protected against misuse. If available, biometric access methods are used to securely unlock the app and only decrypt the encrypted data while the app is running.
A server-side database communicates TLS securely via FHIR with the app in order to exchange data and dynamically configurable questionnaires. Consent is created beforehand by the patient on the device, electronically signed, and transmitted to the CentraXX instance.
Convenience
Due to the dynamic design of the questionnaires in the CentraXX system and the establishment of a second series of questionnaires, the app can also be used in the inpatient area. Patients are only offered the questionnaires that are relevant to them depending on their status (inpatient / at home). The nursing staff is relieved of documenting study-related tasks – in favor of the actual patient care.
Field Test as part of the Federal Government’s Hackathon: WirvsVirus (We vs. the Virus)
On Saturday, March 21st and Sunday, March 22nd, 2020, the KAIROS employees, together with over 40,000 participants, actively participated – as mentors and participants – in the federal government’s hackathon. The Android version of the app was created during the hackathon. In addition, the functionalities could be expanded to such an extent that they could be used as part of a planned field test.
This field test for an iOS and Android app to document the state of health of people suffering from the corona virus in order to better understand the course of the disease. Was started on Sunday under the name CoronaBoXX.
As part of the CoronaBoXX project, patients who are in quarantine can now keep a personalized diary of the course of their illness directly from home, without any unnecessary risk of personal contact, and make this available to doctors and researchers.
Interested in using the CoronaBoXX? Please contact Jesse Goering at
