Maryland Grads Create Popular COVID Screening Tool

A couple of University of Maryland grads have created an online coronavirus symptom checker that is being used across the county to screen patients for COVID-19 symptoms.

Clearstep is an online tool that lets users answer multiple choice questions for COVID symptoms and 500 other health issues.

“To make sure that people who are concerned about COVID could go ahead and check their symptoms really easily, but we could also make sure for example someone that has trouble breathing, it could be COVID, it could be all sorts of other things including a heart attack,” says Bilal Naved one of the creators of Clearstep.

The technology is being used by hospitals and insurance companies.

People can also go online to their website to check their symptoms.

“We ask all of the relevant follow up questions, all multiple choice,” says co-founder Adeel Malik. “At the end you get guidance on what your next steps for care should whether it’s something you can take care of at home, whether you need to see your primary care doctor, urgent care, telemedicine.”

Naved and Malik have known each other since high school in Montgomery County. They graduated from the University of Maryland in 2015.

“We received a first class education here in Maryland,” Naved says. “Without this education, we would not have met each other. We would not have the skills it took to build Clearstep and would not be making a measurable impact on the world of healthcare .”

Clearstep is being used in 18 hospitals in Florida and is averaging 100,000 virtual screenings every two weeks.

“Some of our health systems are also using this on tablets directly inside ambulances,” says co-founder David Zbarsky. “So as they dispatch their responders they use Clearstep en route to triage patients as well.”

They believe tools like Clearstep will play a bigger role as telemedicine visits rise and virtual technology takes on a more vital role.

“We think that we’re moving into this new normal for healthcare where virtual care is going to be a lot more pervasive,” Malik says.