Leveraging Business Capabilities for Innovation: Home-Isolation Tracking by Intugine Technologies

Introduction

As the burden on India’s health care infrastructure increased with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the central government issued guidelines for home isolation, so that patients with mild symptoms could recover at home.¹ However, the substantial increase in the number of such patients created new challenges. Many state governments struggled to ensure that home-quarantined individuals were following guidelines. For example, data from the Karnataka COVID-19 war room revealed that 13,374 people had violated home-quarantine regulations as of June 10, 2020.²

The government identified the need for innovative, technology-driven solutions to track and monitor these patients. Logistic and technology companies were in a good position to use their capabilities to solve this challenge. Intugine Technologies was one such company. Since April 2020, it has used its SIM-based vehicle tracking capabilities to monitor home-quarantined individuals and ensure that social distancing norms were being followed.³

By the end of the first lockdown in India, approximately 300,000 quarantined people across more than 12 states—including Maharashtra, Nagaland, Assam, Arunachal, Goa, Madhya Pradesh, Meghalaya—had been tracked using Intugine’s SIM-based tracking solution.⁴ The data collected through this solution was used to identify and respond to over 100,000 home-quarantine breaches.⁵ Intugine Technologies’ crisis response serves as a model for various private-sector companies looking to leverage their expertise and capabilities to solve pandemic-related challenges.

How can you replicate or adapt this promising practice?

Various companies had the capability to digitize the tracking of home-quarantined patients. However, data security concerns, regulatory approvals, compliance issues, and funding gaps limited the speed with which such technology could be developed. Intugine Technologies, however, was able to overcome these challenges and scale up the use of its product. The factors that contributed to its success are discussed in more detail below.

Repurpose existing technology

Long before COVID-19 hit India, Intugine had been providing SIM-based, real-time tracking and supply chain optimization solutions to companies such as Philips and Flipkart.⁵ When the pandemic hit, the Intugine team was able to quickly repurpose the existing platform from tracking vehicles to tracking movement of patients instead. As a result, Intugine’s location intelligence platform was put to use to track home-quarantined patients.

Use nonintrusive contact-tracing methods

This model did not require home-quarantined patients to download an additional mobile application on their smartphones. Government authorities would upload patients’ details on Intugine’s platform, and an SMS would reach the patients stating the guidelines they should follow. Their consent would then be obtained for SMS-based geolocation tracing.⁶ The data collected were saved on secure servers to ensure complete privacy for the quarantined patients. Additionally, the tracking automatically stopped once the quarantine period ended.³

Partner with state governments for scale

As Intugine’s existing technology was repurposed and developed, it worked with several state governments and government officials, such as Indian Administrative Service and Indian Police Service officers, to deploy the product at scale. The agility shown by these officials was critical to securing approvals and ensuring compliance for the rollout and adoption of this technology.

Use data effectively for monitoring and response

Data from the application were directly uploaded to state government servers. Government officials thus were able to monitor the movement of patients on a real-time dashboard.

“Toward the end of the first lockdown in India, Intugine was able to monitor approximately 300,000 quarantined persons in over 12 states, out of which 100,000-odd breach incidents had been reported to the respective state governments.” —Atharva Shembeker, Product Strategy, Intugine Technologies⁵

When such breaches were noted, the government was able to take the necessary action to ensure compliance with home-isolation guidelines. At the first instance of a breach, officials from the state war room would call the violator and counsel them. In case of a repeat offender, the government would take official action, such as filing a first information report to enforce quarantine rules.⁵

What are the lessons learned from this bright spot?

Identify solutions that align with business capabilities

The team at Intugine Technologies adopted a problem-solving mindset to identify problems that it could solve by using its capabilities or building a solution.⁷ The team constantly brainstormed ideas around essential services, quarantine monitoring, and planning and tracking of large-scale operations to deploy laptops for work from home setups, among other activities.⁸As a team, Intugine regularly conducted in-home training and COVID-19 war room training that helped it scale the solution and contribute to success.⁵The Intugine team also maintained constant contact with state governments’ on-the-ground teams and management teams, which ensured constant feedback and incorporation of modifications to improve the solution.

Cultivate cross-functional networks

Intugine was able to scale up its tracking mechanism as the company received mentorship and funding support from a variety of actors in its network.⁸ The company worked with nonprofit organizations, such as Root64, to identify the right government single point of contact in various states. Funding provided by Action COVID-19 Team Grants helped Intugine scale up with speed.

“The initiative was scaled in Madhya Pradesh through constant support from our own network groups.” —Harshit Shrivastava, Founder and CEO, Intugine Technologies, Bengaluru

How was this promising practice implemented?

Intugine Technologies was established in 2013 by Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur dropouts. Intugine Technologies had expertise in motion sensing and Internet of Things technology and claimed to have the world’s most accurate long-range motion sensing technology.⁸^,9 With 59 employees, the team’s goal has been to combine big data analytics and smart technology to provide reliable and highly efficient solutions in logistics operations.^9,10 However, COVID-19 changed Intugine’s business environment and forced the organization to rethink the way forward. Intugine viewed this not as a challenge but as a strong catalyst for change.⁸

Repurpose Intugine applications to address COVID-19 needs

Intugine’s real-time visibility platform catered to vehicle tracking solutions to meet various business needs. With the onset of the pandemic, the company started looking at alternate use cases for this product. While the organization initially tried to repurpose the product to track accredited social health activists and monitor their work, Intugine finally leveraged its real-time visibility solution for tracking home-quarantined patients. This promising practice of monitoring patients in home isolation is a technological intervention primarily designed to enhance the patient journey.

Use SMS-based tracking for home-quarantined persons

Intugine tweaked its logistics platform to provide solutions for COVID-19 monitoring by running a pilot in more than five districts to check its feasibility.¹⁰ Once it received positive feedback in identifying home-quarantine violations, it reached out to several state governments to scale up implementation.¹¹ In 2020, 600,000 home-quarantined individuals were monitored in India without flouting any privacy considerations, as data collected after attaining the individuals’ consent saved on secure servers and tracking stopped once the quarantine period ended.⁴

Supplementary material

Sources

COVID-19 home isolation: All you need to know about new guidelines for patients, caregivers. Firstpost. April 30, 2021. Accessed August 2021. https://www.firstpost.com/india/covid-19-home-isolation-all-you-need-to-know-about-new-guidelines-for-patients-caregivers-9578071.html
Machina A. Monitoring home-quarantined people a tough challenge for Karnataka. The Economic Times. June 10, 2020. Accessed August 2021. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/monitoring-home-quarantined-people-a-tough-challenge-for-karnataka/articleshow/76295390.cms?from=mdr
Awasthi P. Bengaluru-based start-up Intugine helps States track Covid-19 quarantine zones. The Hindu Business Line. April 8, 2020. Accessed August 2021. https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/companies/bengaluru-based-start-up-intugine-helps-states-track-covid-19-quarantine-zones/article31286336.ece
Excerpt from interview with Harshit Shrivastava, Founder and CEO and Atharva Shembeker, Product Strategy, Intugine Technologies, Bengaluru. August 20, 2021.
Krishna V. Coronavirus: Startup Intugine Technologies helping states track quarantine zones. YourStory. April 6, 2020. Accessed August 2021. https://yourstory.com/2020/04/coronavirus-startup-intugine-technologies-helping-/amp
Rawat A. The Crusaders: 10 Indian startups fighting the pandemic with cutting-edge tech. Inc42. April 14, 2020. Accessed August 2021. https://inc42.com/features/the-crusaders-10-indian-startups-fighting-the-pandemic-with-cutting-edge-tech/
Shrivastava H. My reflections on 2020 - the lows, the highs & everything in between. LinkedIn website. January 21, 2021. Accessed August 2021. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-reflections-2020-lows-highs-everything-between-shrivastava
About us. Intugine Technologies website. Accessed December 15, 2021. https://www.intugine.com/about-us
Intugine - logistics through innovation. Apollo website. Accessed August 2021. https://www.apollo.io/companies/Intugine---Logistics-through-Innovation/54a120a469702d8aa1185f02?chart=count
Coronavirus: Startup Intugine Technologies helping states track quarantine zones. Dailyhunt. April 7, 2020. Accessed August 2021. https://m.dailyhunt.in/news/nepal/english/yourstory-epaper-yourstory/coronavirus+startup+intugine+technologies+helping+states+track+quarantine+zones-newsid-n176535990