04 Sep Augmentation of LifeguardConnect™
The opioid crisis peaked in Canada during 2020, and death by opioid overdoses had risen in BC, Canada more than Covid-19. This R&D project was funded by National Research Council, Industrial Research Assistance Program (Pacific) for augmenting the Lifeguard App with geo-fencing and other functionalities. Lifeguard app was the flagship SaaS intervention for supporting emergency services in the opioid crisis in BC, Canada. The LifeguardConnect™ app, which was in trials until then, was augmented and deployed in the province of BC by a coordinated support and effort of all health authorities led by emergency services (9-1-1).
The research innovations included adding geo-fencing and transitioning into Cloud based platform (Microsoft Azure). The Geo-fencing functionality automated distribution of pre-configured overdose alerts such that appropriate service could be rendered by emergency services within the province. Conversely, in late 2019, Lifeguard became a Microsoft partner and this enabled transition of the product into Azure which was suitable for enterprise-wide deployments (Emergency Services/health authorities).
In addition, the project also began the design of a permissioned blockchain solution for enabling pre-defined actions by pre-identified and authorized users of the product; and a predictive-analytics dashboard to capture, analyze and visualize enterprise-wide solution data in real-time.
NRC-IRAP funding was received throughout the augmentation project from April 2020 – March 2021.
Key features of the app included:
- Overdose response timer
- Geo-fencing
- Custom themes for personalized resources
- Push notifications for drug alerts
- Connection to Emergency Services & Crisis Lines
- Simplified UI
Media/Publications
1. Ictc-Ctic. (2020, July 3). Saving lives from the “Other Crisis” during the covid-19 pandemic at Lifeguard Digital Health. ↗
2. Health, L. D. (2020, June 16). Lifeguard Digital Health Inc. launches mobile application powered by Microsoft Azure to combat the opioid crisis. ↗
3. Health, L. D. (2020, September 18). Lifeguard app adds more life saving features.