Corona app “CovApp” is now available as open source software
Data4Life and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin release the CovApp source code for international use, making processes more efficient.
Berlin, April 2, 2020. On March 18th, the university hospital in Berlin joined nonprofit organization Data4Life in Potsdam in launching the corona app, CovApp, to help people decide if they should visit a COVID-19 examination center. CovApp supports doctors during on-site consultations and shortens the waiting period for anyone who completes the questionnaire.
“We need measures that can be implemented faster than the virus spreads through the population to
successfully counter the coronavirus pandemic. For the first time in history, modern information technology is available that we can use to help people in this situation. By releasing the source code and making it open source, it will be freely accessible for everyone. Software engineers throughout the world will build on our ideas, accelerating further development. I hope this will maximize the benefits of the CovApp for society,” explains Dr. Alexander Thieme, originator of the CovApp, specialist at the Department for Radiation Oncology and Radiation Therapy at the Charité Campus Virchow-Klinikum, and participant and spokesperson of the DFG sponsored "Digital Clinician Scientist Programm" at the Berlin Institute of Health.
The Charité and Data4Life are releasing the underlying source code to help as many people as possible deal with COVID-19, support healthcare professionals in developing more efficient processes, and relieve medical staff. This enables other medical facilities to use the web application in HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. In addition, the app generates a QR code, which can transfer answers from the questionnaire to patient management systems and increase efficiency of local procedures. The source code is now available for interested developers under the free MIT license at github.com/d4l-data4life/covapp. Documentation and further information can be found at www.d4l.io.
“The coronavirus crisis is one of the greatest challenges in modern history and requires a global response from society as a whole. Technology companies are called upon in the same way as scientists to develop digital solutions for containing the pandemic. It makes me proud that Data4Life and experts at the Charité were able to publish and release the CovApp so quickly. Offering this solution as open source software is an important step towards providing the healthcare system with large-scale relief,” says Hasso Plattner, benefactor of the Hasso Plattner Foundation and founder of the HPI.
“We’re happy we can help so many people in cooperation with the Charité. By making the source code public, we want to strengthen as many healthcare providers as possible during the coronavirus crisis and contribute to relieving the healthcare system,” explains Christian Weiß, CEO of Data4Life.
Access to the CovApp: covapp.charite.de
About Data4Life
D4L data4life gGmbH (www.data4life.care) is a nonprofit organization with over 100 employees at 5 locations, originating as a research project at the Hasso-Plattner-Institut für Digital Engineering gGmbH (under the name Gesundheitscloud) and funded by the Hasso Plattner Foundation. Data4Life wants to make a meaningful contribution to improving healthcare by developing and operating IT infrastructures and digital services for the management and analysis of health data and by applying algorithms to the research of diseases and evaluation of treatment methods.
In March 2020, Data4Life developed the CovApp (covapp.charite.de) for and in close cooperation with the Berlin Charité to help people deal with COVID-19. Data4Life was certified in July 2019 by the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) as ISO 27001 compliant on the basis of “IT-Grundschutz.” D4L data4life gGmbH was founded at the end of 2017 with headquarters in Potsdam, Germany. The managing director is Christian-Cornelius Weiß.
Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin
The Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, with around 100 clinics and institutes on 4 campuses and 3,001 beds, is one of the largest university hospitals in Europe. In 2018, 152,693 inpatient cases and 692,920 outpatient cases were treated.
Research, teaching, and healthcare are closely linked at the Charité. Group-wide there are around 18,000 employees at the university hospital in Berlin, making the Charité one of the largest employers in Berlin. More than 4,500 employees are active in the care sector and 4,300 in the scientific and medical sector.
In 2018, the Charité reached a total income of more than 1.8 billion euros. With more than 170.9 million euros in third-party funding, the Charité reached another record. More than 7,500 students are studying medicine and dentistry in the medical department, which is one of the largest in Germany. In addition, there are 619 training positions in 9 healthcare professions.
charite.de
Data4Life is certified by the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) as ISO 27001 compliant on the basis of “IT-Grundschutz.” 