SuperCom Ships Surveillance Tech to Monitor Quarantined COVID-19 Patients

SuperCom is launching a new technology pilot to ensure that people comply with quarantine requirements during the COVID-19 pandemic. The solution is essentially a modified version of the company’s PureHealth platform, and includes the PureCare smartphone and the PureTag ankle bracelet.

Both products have location tracking capabilities, which public health agencies and other government organizations can use to make sure that COVID-19 patients (or those exposed to them) stay at home and observe their quarantine. According to SuperCom, the technology will fulfill requests that the company has received from various international organizations.

“As the Coronavirus continues to spread, governments and healthcare agencies are urgently searching for tools that assist their efforts in fighting this pandemic,” said SuperCom President and CEO Arie Trabelsi. “When it comes to secured boundaries enforcement, we at SuperCom are uniquely positioned for the challenge.”

Of the two technologies, the smartphones are easier to distribute at scale, and will be the primary method of tracking during the pilot. They will be handed out in low-risk situations.

The ankle bracelet, meanwhile, will be deployed in conjunction with the smartphone to keep tabs on high-risk individuals who may be more likely to violate their quarantine. The smartphone and the ankle bracelet are both compatible with SuperCom’s Software-as-a-Service control center, so organizations will be able to use the web-based platform to monitor and manage all of their devices. The system utilizes fingerprint biometrics to verify the identities of the people under surveillance.

Though it was built to enforce public health initiatives, the tech in the COVID-19 pilot is quite similar to SuperCom’s house arrest portfolio. The company is currently in the second year of a lucrative 4.5-year contract with the government of Estonia to monitor approximately 200 people on house arrest in the country.

Unlike other COVID-19 responses, the SuperCom pilot focuses on containment rather than treatment. Companies like BioIntelliSense and ViTel Net have highlighted their remote patient monitoring services to help doctors treat patients who have been confined to their homes.

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March 30, 2020 – by Eric Weiss