SystemOne Launches RDT Digital Integration for Aspect Platform
First Commercial, Scalable Solution Works With Any RDT
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. and JOHANNESBURG, Aug. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- SystemOne, the leader in global disease intelligence for rapid detection and response, has announced the integration of off-the-shelf rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) into the Aspect® platform. Although millions of RDTs are used worldwide for the detection of HIV, Malaria, and Influenza, there are few tools available to collect, aggregate, and validate RDT results in the field.
Because of recent pressure to move RDTs into self-testing by people at home, the global health community has sought a way to collect data, both to connect individual patients for follow-up testing and counseling, and to aggregate the data to study patterns of disease. Although academic groups have experimented with methods for reading RDT results and collecting patient data, none have found widespread use.
Working with the HSTAR Programme at University of the Witwatersrand Reproductive Health and HIV Institute (Wits RHI) and supported by funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), SystemOne developed its approach to be flexible, scalable, and sustainable.
By integrating RDT data into the Aspect platform, the data can be accessed within minutes by the ministry of health, research team, and healthcare providers anywhere in the world. Because Aspect already integrates HIV viral load data, the solution now makes it possible to link screening tests to confirmatory tests and follow-up testing during treatment.
For the first roll-out of the functionality, SystemOne created a mobile-phone application that collects demographic data about the patient, offers guidance for performing a self-test using standard RDT, and allows the patient to take a picture of the completed test result.
The app asks for the patient's interpretation of the test result. All of the data, including the picture, are uploaded to Aspect for review by healthcare workers.
Because Aspect is flexible enough to accept diagnostic data from any device, other app providers can produce their own apps to guide patients, collect data, and even automatically interpret results. For developers, integration with Aspect is as simple as making a single call to Aspect, securely delivering clinical and demographic data.
SystemOne products are used to collect, analyze, and deliver diagnostic data from any diagnostic device for diseases such as TB, HIV, Hepatitis, Ebola, and Zika. "We are especially excited to offer integration with RDTs," says Aaron Oppenheimer, SystemOne VP of Product Design. "They are widespread and inexpensive, but the simplicity can come with a cost, since there has been no scalable way to gather the data. With this extension of the Aspect platform, healthcare programs can finally see what's happening in the field, in real time."
About SystemOne:
Founded in Massachusetts in 2012, SystemOne focuses on producing solutions for disease surveillance and response. SystemOne has offices in Springfield and Boston, MA and Johannesburg, South Africa.
SOURCE SystemOne
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