Earlier this year, we helped The Cardiac Arrhythmia Network of Canada (CANet) launch VIRTUES, an online web-based application developed to reduce emergency department visits and improve COVID-19 patient-driven care. Enabling patients and frontline healthcare professionals to better monitor, triage, and manage treatments while limiting face-to-face interaction, VIRTUES has proven to be vital in managing the spread of the virus, today.

As the pandemic progressed in the first quarter of this year, many of Canada’s telehealth solutions were under tremendous strain. CANet identified the need for a digital solution and approached Clearbridge Mobile to help adapt CANet’s VIRTUES platform to have a more defined role in COVID-19 symptom tracking.

“As a made-in-Canada solution, partnering with a local North American vendor was extremely important to us. “This ensured we would have unrestricted access to their team of experts whenever needed, and allowed for open and transparent communication. Clearbridge Mobile was very customer-centric and dedicated to a refined process that helped us achieve success in launching this app.” – Dr. Anthony Tang, CEO and Scientific Director, CANet

While a majority of COVID-19 cases don’t require hospitalization, it’s essential to monitor symptom progression and catch the ones that do as the most dangerous symptoms of disease progression are “silent”. For Canadians who feel they are at risk of COVID-19 or have already contracted the virus, the VIRTUES platform enables them to:

• Record, monitor, and track symptoms within the platform
• Display patterns in the symptom progression of individual 
• Receive care plans from healthcare professionals remotely

With certain cases, healthcare professionals working with the VIRTUES platform can deliver medical tools like pulse oximeters and thermometers directly to the patient’s home, so patients can monitor their health while effectively limiting as much face-to-face interaction as possible. 

The partnership with Clearbridge Mobile enabled CANet to have access to industry experts with a deep understanding of the needs of the healthcare sector and in the principles of interaction-design. This resulted in a user experience that empathizes with all users, while still addressing the operational impact to hospitals, and clinics to reduce inefficiencies and costs. The digital solution is highly scalable in the sense that one healthcare professional can successfully manage 15 to 100 cases; if you put the solution into the hands of 1000 nurses, then 100,000 patients are accounted for. The immediacy and scalability of the platform holds tremendous value for enabling our frontline healthcare workers to act quickly, and administering treatment in the safest, most efficient way possible. 

“Time was of the essence with this project.” Given the circumstances, it was imperative for us to bring the app to market ASAP. Our design thinking approach, and agile software development expertise allowed us to work quickly and iteratively to leverage our in-house team’s knowledge to meet this demand. As a company, it is our goal to develop applications that have a positive impact on the lives of the user, and I think this platform holds tremendous value for both healthcare professionals and COVID-19 positive patients.” – Deepak Chopra, CEO, Clearbridge Mobile

VIRTUES is currently in use in a CANet-funded study providing remote management to patients who live with either a pacemaker or implantable cardiac defibrillators (ICD). 

To learn more on how we developed this web app for CANet, click here.

About Cardiac Arrhythmia Network of Canada

CANet is a Pan-Canadian multidisciplinary and multi-sectoral research and development network of investigators, well-positioned industry partners, patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers focused on arrhythmia research, technology development and commercialization, and digital transformation activities. CANet is funded in part by the federal government’s Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE), Canada’s flagship science and technology program.