JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

We discuss a framework of Telemedicine using symptom-based quick response (QR) codes to contain the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19). The approach can be effectively deployed as a uniform platform interconnecting a variety of responders (e.g., individuals, institutions, and public authorities) affected by the pandemic, which minimizes the errors of manual operations and costs of fragmented coordination. In the meantime, it enhances the promptness, interoperability, credibility, and traceability of telemedicine. The proposed approach provides a supplemental mechanism not only to manual control measures but also to extant digital telemedicine partially failing in these facets. The deployment of the approach in a setting with nearly 40 million population has gained sizeable effects of containment and played remarkable roles in shifting the negative Gross Domestic Product (GDP) 6.8% to be positive by July 2020. The cumulative cases there were 363, of which 361 recovered (recovery rate 99.4%) as of July 12, 2020. The simulation shows that when only partial measures of the framework were followed less rigidly, the cumulative cases of COVID-19 would potentially increase ten-folds in magnitude. The approach can serve: (1) as a reliable solution to counteract the emergency of public health crisis; (2) as a routine tool to enhance the level of public health; (3) to accelerate the recovery of social activities; (4) to assist better decision making for policymakers; and (5) as a sustainable measure allowing for scalability.