COVID-19 cough screening tool

Centre for health informatics

Research stream

Precision Health

Project members

Professor Shlomo Berkovsky – Precision Health
Professor Dali Kaafar – Computing Science
Dr Roneel Sharan – Research Fellow
Professor Enrico Coiera – Director of the Centre for Health Informatics
Mr Nazim Uddin Sheikh - Research Assistant

Project contact

Professor Shlomo Berkovsky
E: shlomo.berkovsky@mq.edu.au

Project main description

Current COVID-19 diagnostic practices primarily rely on a PCR test. The test is perceived as invasive and inconvenient, is done in a clinic, and requires isolation until the outcomes are known. Often, people with no or mild COVID-19 symptoms may be unaware of the need to test or be reluctant to come forward for testing. This highlights the need for a rapid, easy, and scalable screening tool. This project, in partnership with Optus, will develop a screening tool to estimate an individual’s chance of having COVID-19 and recommend a PCR test if needed. The tool capitalises on the sensing technologies available in smartphones, and their wide accessibility everywhere and to everyone. It will use the state-of-the-art artificial intelligence (AI) methods to provide immediate outcomes and recommended follow-up actions. The tool has the potential to be distributed via established mobile app platforms (Apple Store and Google Play), reaching the vast majority of the population and facilitating rapid and large-scale screening.

Aims

By leveraging AI methods and working with clinicians, the project aims to develop, evaluate, and deploy a practical and widely accessible mobile tool for rapid screening of COVID-19. The key research questions targeted by the project are:

• What screening accuracy is achievable using acoustic data captured by a microphone of a standard commercial smartphone?
• How is the screening accuracy affected by the application of privacy-enhanced machine learning methods?

Project sponsors

Optus Macquarie University Cyber Security Hub

Collaborative partners

Professor Adam Jaffe - Professor of Paediatrics at UNSW

Project status

Current

Centres related to this project

Centre for Health Informatics

Photo by Rodion Kutsaev on Unsplash