Health Guard PH is our innovation for health services at the peak of the global health crisis.
Adding up to the efforts of the national government in mitigating the transmission of COVID-19, Health Guard PH enabled the Cagayan Valley Region to have a centralized monitoring scheme for contact tracing. ISU’s Research Center, the Business Intelligence Research and Development Center (BIRDC) of ISU-Cauayan Campus, moved for a massive digital commitment to spur this innovation.
Our Response Led to Innovation
HealthGuard PH is a health information system that generates data analytics reports using reported contacts and medical profiles of HealthGuard registered users. This extends public participation through interactive online reporting, digitizing the contact tracing efforts in the province and region.
In May of 2020, the University officially transferred its developed technology to LGU Ilagan, becoming the pilot LGU to use the system. Since then, various LGUs in the region signified interest to adopt the system for local implementation. The Provincial Governments of Quirino and Isabela both moved for the same implementation, upscaling the system on a sub-regional scale.
To utilize the app, every person has a generated QR code that is being scanned by a QR reader positioned on every store and public establishments. Every scan means an entry point, which is then recorded for data banking, and in turn can be accessed to monitor every entry point of possible contacts.
Our Innovation Rallied for Participatory Development
By the time it had expanded, HealthGuard was seen as a melting pot of innovative ideas pitched from different end-users and partners alike. Office of Civil Defense Region 02 brought and integrated the concept of Region 02 Zoning Concept, which provided a more illustrative mapping of CoViD-19 concentration areas in the region classified on respective degrees-Critical, Containment, Buffer, and Outside Buffer. The pilot use at LGU Ilagan on the other hand allowed the app to digitize the inventory of medical supplies. Now, it functions as a complementary database system in generating safe-unsafe preemptive evacuation for the Project ODeSSEE, another innovation that takes into account disaster resilience amid the pandemic. (See more on this Project, here).
As a result of the collaborative research work of LGUs and ISU, the Health Guard includes Covid-19 contact tracing features such as:
- Register and report individual and business establishment/agencies;
- Send SMS alert notification to Covid-19 contacts;
- Record, retrieve and search Covid-19 contacts and cases;
- Generate report contacts;
- Tagging of contacts based on DOH epidemiological classification cases;
- Tagging of contacts based on assigned quarantine facilities;
- Generate of Covid-19 infographics report for public dissemination; and
- Generate predictive analytics report;
Health Guard was customized based on the most available communication technologies which includes text messaging system and online services using dedicated domain healthguard.ph. Data is being maintained by ISU BIRD-C dedicated Cloud IaaS and provided partner LGUs industry-standard local data server storage for data back-up and archives.
More than the innovation, Health Guard demonstrated how communities can harness unity and ingenuity to thrive amid pressing challenges. Innovation, thus, is not just another step in leveling up, but also a means to appreciate the process of development.
List of Agencies Conducted HealthGuard Ph Training
| Name of Agency | Date of Training |
|---|---|
| Department of Agriculture – R2 | December 6, 2020 |
| Quirino State University | December 8, 2020 |
| Civil Service Commission – R2 | December 17, 2020 |
| Department of Trade and Industry – R2 | October 2, 2020 |
| Medical Colleges of Northern Philippines | October 5, 2020 |
| Armed Forces of the Philippines – 5 th Infantry Division | October 23, 2020 |
| Aldersgate College | October 22, 2020 |
| St. Mary’s University | October 21, 2020 |
| Commission on Higher Education – R2 | September 29, 2020 |
| LGU Echague | August 13, 2020 |
| LGU Ilagan City | May 26, 2020 |