Many people, myself included, didn’t even know that the North Central Regional Health Authority had a mobile app available until it was mentioned two weeks ago at one of the Ministry of Health briefings. The Preview by NCRHA app has been available in the Google Play store since last August although, judging by the number of downloads, it’s not been a very popular download. The NCRHA bills it as a digital platform to ‘manage your at-home wellness state’ so when I got diagnosed with COVID-19 last week, I decided to try it out. Here’s what my experience was like downloading and using it.
Signup was super simple and didn’t require a lot of information. Just my name, a pin, DOB, phone number, and an optional email address. I realised later on that they use the phone number to contact you (more on that later) so make sure you enter one that is reachable.
Once my signup was complete, a quick guide to the app’s functions popped up. Even though I don’t need it, I like that they included the ‘Read Aloud’ option for the menus as accessibility for all is not one of T&T’s strong points. The app also asked me to enable my location and notifications. To date, I haven’t got a notification but I’m not sure if that’s the app or my phone being buggy.
Quick guide complete, the welcome screen loaded up. As it was my first time using the app, I didn’t have a last checkup to view so I chose the ‘Get a checkup’ option.
The Checkup tool again offered me the option to enable ‘voice over’ at the start of the process and then asked a series of questions about my age group, state of wellness, and reading from a Blood Oxygen (SpO2) meter if available. There’s no way to get back to a previous question though, pressing back took me right back to the home screen which is a little tedious but seeing that there are only 6 questions anyway, it’s only a mild annoyance.
Once all the information is in, the final screen let me know my status. In this case, I didn’t need to contact the ambulance or be hospitalised based on my responses. I finished the checkup thinking that was it.
A few hours later, a doctor from the Arima Hospital called to check up on me. He asked a few questions to determine my health status and gave some advice on the signs to look for that would require an ambulance to be called. This was especially helpful as I wasn’t quite sure how I would notice a drop in oxygen levels seeing that I had no oximeter.
In my experience, a doctor called every time I did one of the checkups but the timeframe varied. One call came in as little as 5 minutes after finishing the checkup but generally, it took 4-5 hours to receive a call. Even though the NCRHA says it will intervene, if necessary, the app doesn’t allow you to call from within it so if you are in distress make the call yourself... don’t wait!
Tip: Some of the doctor’s calls have come from private numbers so don’t ignore the call.
There is also a section with COVID-19 tips which includes essential contact numbers and tips on preventing spread. The sections about preventing spread had good iconography but part of the text was hidden by the ‘learn more’ option which doesn’t seem to be linked to anything so I couldn’t in fact... learn more.
The app is small and lightweight, coming in at only 31MB so it doesn’t take up too much space on your phone. It’s available for anyone running Android version 5.0 and up only, no word yet on if/when an iOS version will be available.
Is the app perfect? No. There are several things that could be included to make the experience better, including an SOS button and working links in the ‘COVID-19 Tips’ section. The app also doesn’t seem to remember the user, so you have to log in every time and it couldn’t seem to find my checkup records when I tried to access it.
However, I would still say it’s a pretty solid app and the fact that a doctor calls every time you use the checkup function makes it a worthwhile download if you fall under the NCRHA’s jurisdiction.
