Free healthcare resources available in midst of COVID-19

Plenty of organizations are stepping up to help during the COVID-19 pandemic. Below, check out our growing complilation of resources available at no cost to the healthcare industry and beyond to help address the impact of the coronavirus.

CLINICAL COMMUNICATION

• MESSAGING: PerfectServe, a clinical communication platform, is offering free services to hospitals and physician group clients during the COVID-19 pandemic. Healthcare organization clients will have free access to patient and family messaging services, such as automated patient outreach via text message. This service can be used for curbside screening and telemedicine. The company also is offering professional services to implement best practices for coronavirus use cases. Organizations interested in learning more can email connect@perfectserve.net.
• TELEHEALTH: Curogram, a telemedicine and messaging platform, is providing its virtual clinic telemedicine product free to children’s hospitals and smaller regional hospitals to set up an online video walk-in clinic for COVID-19 triage purposes.

COMPLIANCE

• DIGITAL TOOLS: Verge Health, a governance, risk and compliance platform for healthcare, is offering, free of charge, access to its compliance rounding solution featuring digital tools to help facilities complete COVID-19 audit procedures as proposed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). CMS and CDC published checklists to help health facilities determine priority compliance as they prepare for a possible influx of patients infected with COVID-19. All hospitals and health systems in the U.S. have free access to the solution starting today, the company said.

DATA

• DATA HUB: Software company Tableau has developed a free data resource hub to help organizations see and understand coronavirus public health data in near real-time. The data hub includes case data compiled by Johns Hopkins University as well as data from the World Health Organization and the CDC.

HOW-TO GUIDES

• SANITIZER: The Food and Drug Administration released two temporary guides for the production of alcohol-based hand sanitizer to help boost supply.
• EMERGENCY LEAVE: Mercer released a blog laying out four of the considerations of an emergency leave policy in the midst of strengthened COVID-19 shelter in place guidelines.
• PHYSICIAN RESOURCES: The American Medical Association published several resources for physicians and practices including A Physicians Guide to COVID-19 to help physicians prepare their practices, address patient concerns, and provide answers to physicians’ top questions. It also released an AMA COVID-19 online resource center, and a COVID-19 FAQ that are updated each day with the latest information on the COVID-19 epidemic, as well as a Quick Guide to Telemedicine in Practice, a new resource to help physicians implement remote care which can help achieve a dramatic increase in the nation’s telemedicine capacity and the AMA Journal of Medical Ethics published ethical guidance for physicians to help them in making determinations about how to combat COVID-19.
• PHYSICIAN RESOURCES: The JAMA Network a  COVID-19 Resource Center for evidence-based, actionable resources, plus videos of firsthand accounts from physicians on the front lines. It also has CME for physicians through the JAMA Network’s JN Learning website, including COVID-19 epidemiology, infection control and prevention recommendations.

SCREENING

• CHATBOT: Microsoft is offering its Healthcare Bot service to help screen for potential infection and care. The bot will initially be available on the CDC website, officials announced. The bot can assess symptoms and risk factors for people worried about infection, suggest a next course of action such as contacting a medical provider or, for those who do not need in-person medical attention, how to manage the illness safely at home.
• CHATBOT: Orbita has released a no-cost COVID-19 chatbot, enabling healthcare organizations to quickly integrate coronavirus Q&A and screening tools into existing websites. The COVID-19 Virtual Assistant is a turnkey chatbot that can improve access to coronavirus-specific question-answering and screening tools. The virtual assistant tool is prepackaged with conversationally formatted, question-and-answer and screening content from the CDC and other clinically vetted sources.
• VIRTUAL CARE TOOL: Bright.md is offering a free evaluation, screening and escalation tool, available to all hospitals in the U.S. via its virtual care application, SmartExam. Bright.md’s rapid response team will work with interested hospitals to get the screening tool up and running via their website within a week. The tool is continually updated based on CDC guidelines. Hospitals interested in adding Bright.md’s free virtual care tool should email covid19@bright.md.

SUPPLY CHAIN

• PROCUREMENT PLATFORM: DemandStar, which is an online network connecting local and national suppliers with government procurement officers, announced it will offer electronic bidding services and access to any local or state municipality at no cost to allow them to reach the suppliers and support. Additionally, businesses who can help respond to the many active emergency response bids are encouraged to join DemandStar.

SUPPORT FOR HEALTHCARE WORKERS

• FOOD: Uber is taking steps to support healthcare organizations, including providing 300,000 free meals on Uber Eats to first responders and healthcare workers in the U.S. and Canada, in coordination with local, state and provincial governments. Interested officials and organizations can reach out at social-impact-support@uber.com to learn more about the program. As many healthcare organizations leverage Uber Eats to feed staff, patients and caregivers, Uber also has waived the delivery fee at more than 100,000 independent businesses to support local restaurants.
• MENTAL HEALTH: Virtual behavioral health startup Ginger is offering U.S.-based health systems the option to provide their front-line healthcare workers with free, on-demand behavioral health coaching through the end of June 2020. Through this free benefit, eligible healthcare workers will be able to chat in real time with a trained behavioral health coach at any time of day or night. Coaches are available within 60 seconds.

TECH HELP

• SYSTEMS INTEGRATION: Bridge Connector is offering rapid deployment system integrations for COVID-19 use cases free of charge for six months. The company says it can help hospitals and health systems manage the huge influx of patient data they’re currently experiencing by rapidly connecting data systems using its pre-built connectors. “Offering our integration platform for free and collaborating with EHR vendors and other industry stakeholders will help providers improve workflows as patient volume continues to increase,” said David Wenger, Bridge Connector founder and CEO.
• REMOVE WORK PLATFORM: Salesforce is providing coronavirus-affected health systems free access to Salesforce Health Cloud technologies, according to a company blog. The company’s COVID-19 Response Package solution can be deployed quickly and at no charge for six months to immediately aid emergency response teams, call centers and care management teams for health systems affected by coronavirus. Salesforce company Quip Starter, a remote work platform, also will be available for free to any Salesforce customer or nonprofit organization through Sept. 30, 2020.
• RANSOMWARE HELP: Emsisoft is teaming up with incident response company Coveware to offer free ransomware help to critical care hospitals and other healthcare providers that are on the front lines of COVID-19. Healthcare providers can access both companies’ complete range of ransomware-related services at no cost for the duration of the COVID-19 crisis. The companies anticipate an increase in ransomware incidents and are offering these free services to get impacted providers operational again in the shortest possible time so patient care is minimally disrupted.
• WI-FI NETWORK: Juniper Networks is offering a free secure “pop up Wi-Fi network” kit for any temporary COVID-19 testing facility. Initially available in the U.S., Canada and the U.K., the kit includes free Mist wireless access points, cloud-hosted operations with an AI-driven network and an SRX firewall (with PoE, DHCP and optional LTE uplink) to ensure a secure and reliable connection, the company said. As hospitals are building outdoor drive-thru testing facilities and opening temporary triage centers in retail store parking lots, the company is deploying free Wi-Fi networks to address IT challenges. More information can be found here.

https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/hospitals-health-systems/looking-for-support-here-s-a-roundup-some-free-healthcare-resources