CLEA can help businesses mitigate the risk of spreading COVID-19

May 20, 2022

Malaysians need to get accustomed to new and ever-changing standard operating procedures (SOPs) as they try to live with COVID-19. Much like the rest of the world, this move includes a hefty amount of worry about the safety of travel – be it just to the office.

Dr. Chan Hai Feng, Founder and CEO of CLEA, Malaysia’s own virtual COVID-19 screening app, speaks to Healthcare Asia in an exclusive interview where he touches on COVID-19 testing in the workplace and preventing its spread, as well as future digital healthcare considerations for COVID-19 endemicity.

CLEA was launched in October 2021, and has since saved a great deal of time for Malaysians who have had to have sudden and compulsory screening activities.

Healthcare Asia (HCA): What are the kinds of challenges businesses would potentially face in controlling foot traffic within their premises [with the new SOPs]?

The whole purpose for CLEA back then was to boldly enable a perfect ecosystem for people to return to their business premises, and have much needed interactions like old times, while having CLEA’s Virtual COVID-19 Screening as a guarding solution. Getting a verified test is a hustle if needed to be carried out frequently. A verified, virtual process by medical practitioners guided by a sequential In-app test will help our citizens who are already normalised and sensitised to personal test kits.

If we can impose a certain degree of control within a business premise, we can reduce the possible risks to a minimum. One could have no symptoms at all but can carry the virus and be infectious to people around them. This is especially dangerous towards infants and toddlers since many of them are yet to be vaccinated.

HCA: What are the kinds of SOPs businesses should implement on their premises to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus?

There is no direct medical intervention to eradicate the virus: one way to stop its spread is to develop vaccines. Screenings play another role in preventing the spread of COVID-19 as we can quickly isolate and quarantine positive patients. It is vital that businesses implement this step, as part of their operations. However, physical screening is a major waste of human resources and time. We believe that with the correct structure and framework, we can have a virtual screening platform that allows for higher efficiency and capacity while maintaining the integrity of COVID-19 screening. With this, we can screen on a larger scale and prevent further the spread of the virus.

HCA: Why should business owners be proactive about this?

As business owners ourselves, we believe that protecting our premises and employees are one of our main responsibilities, period. Any element of negligence will affect the sense of security and also the organisational behaviour related to crisis management.

Business means busy-ness within a safe environment for lives to flourish, not putting talents at unknown risks.

As many prominent professionals have mentioned and advocated, handling of pandemics and endemics is vital as zoonotic or infectious viral diseases will be common in the future considering how our environment is shaped. As the main vehicle of the economy, businesses are one of the key players playing the role of adopting relevant and viable technological solutions to contain, identify, and manage viral status information of their talents.

HCA: How frequently should businesses screen their employees and how are they able to track COVID-19 cases accurately?

All businesses should be conscious and abide by the regulations set by the Health Ministry (KKM) – we, as medical professionals, will always recommend frequent tests as endemics can be countered following these three vital elements: vaccines, civic awareness, and frequent testings (test, trace and isolate). We take full reference from KKM, where self-aware tests are supposed to be conducted under professional supervision once there are symptoms, and make effective isolation for everyone’s well-being.

HCA: How does CLEA ensure the verification and integrity of all their COVID-19 testings?

There are four main steps to ensure test integrity for the whole screening process: the ID verification, test kits verification, sample collection verification, and lastly, result verification. The whole screening process is designed according to guidelines and protocols that the doctors usually practice in clinics.

Furthermore, all transmitted data in CLEADOC [telehealth service] are encrypted to ensure security; we also have multiple auto-scaling servers’ clusters to cater to the app, the databases, and back offices. From time to time we even perform penetration tests and Ddos attacks [server maintenance] to ensure all our servers are secured from every endpoint.

HCA: Can you elaborate more about CLEA’s partnership with eMedAsia and how it would be able to help businesses specifically?

[Through the] scalability of our national screening capacity. It has always been a challenge to get more dedicated professionals to verify tests for our users; we are always looking to introduce more panel clinics to provide virtual screening to more users in Malaysia.

Apart from that, we wish to “democratise health” by progressively introducing more ground-breaking user-centric digital medicine features and products. We hope more doctors will appreciate telemedicine after this, utilising us as a tool to complement their medical practice, and providing a better healthcare solution for their patients.

HCA: In your opinion, what are trends in the digital healthcare industry currently?

The industry is definitely heading towards the telehealth consultation trend – why risk yourself to go to a clinic or hospital or expose yourself to more viruses when you can just consult your doctor virtually through a phone, with all integrity measures in place?

It is becoming increasingly clear that a patient-centered approach to healthcare requires digital revolution. It will aid healthcare providers in streamlining operations, gaining a better understanding of what patients require, increasing loyalty and trust, and improving user experience. The digitisation process enables healthcare organisations and institutions to establish more effective and efficient automated clinical and administrative operations that facilitate patient collaboration.

Going digital can also lower costs of healthcare service, reduce human error, and improve patient outcomes. CLEADOC is ready to introduce even more groundbreaking POC (Proof of Concepts) along the line of disruption, contributing to our country’s digital health ecosystem.

HCA: Are there any other future partnerships CLEA plans on enacting with other sectors?

As the inventor of this Virtual COVID-19 Screening culture, we have always wanted other developing countries to adopt CLEADOC’s methodology, as it is designed by professionals, is ready for scaling, and easy for the community to adapt to. We foresee CLEADOC will complement the private and the government medical facilities in many ways, sensitise healthcare, and at the same time improve the overall community healthcare index. Besides actively reaching to more public to engage with our service, we are also in the midst of expanding and offering this service to more neighbouring countries, assisting them to combat this virus with a scalable pandemic screening platform.

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