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May was the month when the most people searched for the word "artificial intelligence" on Google.
Gemma Galdón, an expert in online privacy at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), is not surprised.
“It is evident that there was a hunger for technological solutions;
to save us from the enormous challenge posed by the coronavirus crisis ”, he explained this Tuesday at the virtual meeting in which the Covid-19 report and the responsible use of data were made public.
Analysis of initiatives supported by IDB Lab. “Everyone wanted answers for yesterday.
But how to do it? ”He wondered.
This doubt was the one that motivated a financing program for technological projects that would alleviate the burden of the pandemic.
With the magnifying glass placed on the operational capacity of the initiatives, the protection of data and their contribution to public health, the IDB will support, for periods of up to 18 months, 20 of the more than 500 applicants in ten countries of the region.
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The coronavirus impacted in Latin America and the Caribbean at the end of February, with the first case registered in Brazil and the first death in Argentina in early March.
Since then, the metastasis of these initial cases has claimed more than 440,000 lives and caused 12 million infections.
The pandemic attacked a regional health system that invested just 6% of GDP in 2019, according to data from the Pan American Health Organization and in which informal work is the reality of 55% of workers.
Faced with this scenario, the IDB launched a 10-day selection process for projects that would ease the burden of an unprecedented crisis.
Despite the limited time frame, close to 500 proposals were registered.
23% of these were related to telemedicine;
23%, to the diagnosis and analysis of patients with covid-19;
18%, to citizen information platforms, and 10% to close contact tracing initiatives.
The Laura Fressatto Institute, a Brazilian entity, was one of the candidates selected for its robotic self-diagnosis application.
This platform intended to reduce the risk of contagion and promote remote medical monitoring.
Hugo Morales, responsible for the application, had it clear: "If we want to democratize access to health through technology, we have to understand the path that the patient takes and the doubts that arise."
This
chatbot
performs a screening among potential patients who will approach the health center in the midst of a pandemic and presents a kind of timeline with key points in the clinical history of each one of them.
It also offers the possibility of teleconsultation.
All this information is stored and subsequently referred to the 15 Brazilian hospitals that make use of this alternative, as well as the subsequent monitoring of those infected for almost two weeks.
Thanks to an innovative application, 190,000 calls were saved to the collapsed Brazilian health centers.
More than 6.5 million people have benefited from it
"We know that we handle very sensitive data, that aspect was one of our main concerns," Morales said in the virtual meeting.
That is why a consent form was drawn up for users, the geolocation of the application was removed - as it was not necessary - and a specific position was created in the company that would organize this section.
These decisions were made in the numerous interviews and suggestions of the IDB Laboratory - which has financed the project with 128,000 dollars (106,000 euros) - and Morales.
For now, the data is encouraging: 6.5 million people have benefited directly or indirectly, 111,000 patients have been treated and 190,000 calls to health centers have been saved.
Another of the selected initiatives was that led by Juan Carlos Holguin.
The Ecuadorian, on behalf of Grupo Link and Kin Analytics, proposed an interaction tracking system or
contact tracing
in which precautions were taken with the information despite the fact that the Latin American country lacks a state data protection law.
The idea arose when a case occurred in the Galapago Islands and the Government tried to follow up on possible contacts through interviews.
“We wanted to automate and correct memory errors that anyone may have.
We did not want to leave those cases loose ”, explained Holguin in the videoconference.
To further facilitate the download, they made sure that it hardly took up space and that it did not consume excess battery: “The challenge was to make it reach people.
That's why we did it through Juan Valdez supermarkets and coffee shops ”.
The gap between society and technology
Gemma Galdón laments the strong erosion that exists between society and technology.
“Many times it is with reason, after the abuse of the malpractice of some.
People continue to use applications for the world we live in, but they have never been so suspicious as now;
The lack of transparency is less and less tolerated ”, he energetically stressed during the conference.
"That is why it is time to do it well and show that there is no dilemma: you can have the best technology, with the highest privacy standards."
In fact, the parameters used by the IDB selection team have been even more demanding with the handling of the data than was stipulated by the Data Protection Standards of the Ibero-American States approved in 2017. These establish that the right may be limited to the protection of data to safeguard national security, public safety, the protection of public health, the rights and freedoms of third parties, as well as for matters of public interest.
"At the time we were, we did not want to take advantage of the wide sleeve, but to be much more careful with transparency and auditing," he added.
That is why protocols were developed that enable the owner of the data to limit the type of information and the time of use by third parties.
This is, Galdón commented, the turning point for the use of technological solutions to be promoted without fear.
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