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The Novel Coronavirus epidemic that has spread its tentacles worldwide almost brought business and the economy to its knees. With no way of attending office, how are employees supposed to work? COVID has made an enormous difference in our lives, and there’s no denying it. Well, there has been one positive impact amongst a few of this COVID lockdown, that has helped our civilization move forward and conduct business even in times of a pandemic. The digital future that was waiting for us has suddenly been brought forward.

There have been many changes on two fronts: the business side and the consumer side. In the case of the former, organizations have adopted digital tactics to help employees carry on work smoothly during the time of a lockdown. Companies are trying to offer consumers more facilities during the lockdown. On the consumer end, this is mostly a behavioral change, i.e., It is how people have started adapting to the sudden differences in lifestyle brought about by the COVID lockdown. To do so, they are relying more and more on technology.

Here’s how and why the digital future has been brought forward by the COVID lockdown.

Business needs to continue, and via the work from a home model, companies have found a great way to keep employees productive and engaged.

Companies were the first to realize that commerce and trade cannot suffer because people can’t leave the house. As a result of the lockdown, there has been a rise in video calling and conferencing technology. There has also been an increase in the implementation of automated employee systems, so tasks can be carried out as scheduled. Via meetings, management can confer with direct workers. Pitches can be made via video conferences, and briefings can also be carried out. Fortunately, the technology that video calling apps use also allows for screen sharing. When it comes to official video calls, Zoom has emerged as the preferred app of choice. If video calling is not required, a text-based group can also be created. An app called Telegram has gained popularity for being a great WhatsApp clone that people can use for official communication.

Technology helps students keep in touch with their lecturers, and enables the continuation of education through online classes.

Students cannot go back to attending classes for a while. This has led to many changes in the educational sector. Today, lectures are being held via video-conference online, and students are clearing doubts across a screen. Professors are hosting classes with as many as 100 students at one time. Another area in education that the lockdown has made a marked difference is the decline in physical literature. As students don’t have access to their colleges and universities, they cannot use the libraries and are cut off from physical books. Hence there has been an increase in PDF and e-book formats for popular textbooks. These cost less than physical books, don’t have to be carried from one place to another, and maybe shared among students. As a planet, we were well on our way to becoming a paperless society, and this step is one in the right direction.

New digital methods allow children to connect with parents, and people to connect with work and family members and keep in touch while staying at home.

Due to the lockdown, family visits aren’t as frequent as they used to be. Relatives are keeping in touch using technology. WhatsApp is an excellent platform for video calls with your loved ones. Sometimes, family members in different cities coordinate their time-zones and share a cup of tea via online. The regular family outing has been restricted to the screen. As we move towards the future and time gets more scarce, maybe online communication with our loved ones is the way to go to save time. At the same time, it gives you the freedom to contact who you want, whenever you want.

Technology is helping medical professionals research and try to find a cure for COVID

Medical professionals have been extensively using technology in their fight against COVID, and in their attempt to find a vaccine and a cure. Technology and medicine have always moved hand in hand. As science makes progress in the technological sphere, medical breakthroughs also increase in number. Medical professionals are realizing the importance of technology and how it can help them try to safeguard the human population from the virus.

Essential services like food are being delivered via applications.

While we were always using applications like Zomato and Swiggy to get readymade food delivered online, today, every ecommerce player is trying to get essentials as well delivered online. Some food delivery platforms have even pushed for the delivery of alcohol. As lockdown carries on, the delivery of products is the choice of most people because it removes the necessity of going out and exposing yourself to contamination. Today, on Amazon, you can find groceries and order your month’s rations. Similarly, you can also use Swiggy to deliver alcohol to your house, depending on your location and the app’s local policies. As we move towards the future, ecommerce retailers are poised to widen their product portfolio, giving us whatever we need online. The COVID lockdown has hastened that process up. Today, it is not strange to see deliveries happening containing essential items like cooking oil, eggs, etc. which require utmost care while transporting lest a leak occurs. Some food delivery apps have carried on taking orders during the lockdown. In order to calm the public fears regarding health and contamination, these apps take many safety precautions. They even make the riders take multiple steps to make sure hygiene is maintained. Usually, the reassurance of this is provided on the app interface itself. Phrases like “regular temperature checks” have started appearing on the portals of Zomato and Swiggy to assure patrons that the delivery boys are maintaining COVID restrictions.

There has been a marked increase in the use of OTT platforms as people struggle to entertain themselves sitting at home

There has also been a marked increase in the number of hours people spend on streaming platforms, which has given rise to newer platforms. Earlier, there was just Netflix and its shows to choose from. Today, we have Amazon Prime, Disney Hotstar, and a dozen other platforms that stream even local content, like Hoi Choi. During the initial stages of the lockdown, while companies were still figuring out work from home logistics, people suddenly found themselves with a lot of time on their hands, and this drove them in thousands to streaming platforms. The number of platforms and the content has increased dramatically, and so have the viewing options. Today, consumers can watch their favorite shows on any medium, from a mobile phone to a 50-inch smart television, and everything in between. This has even made a difference in the entertainment industry by making it more democratic. Today, the audience is spoilt for choice like never before.

A paradigm shift in online dating and interactions

The future of online dating, too, has changed. Earlier, the very nature of a dating app was to help matches strike up a conversation with each other, in an effort to set up an offline meeting. Now, due to the pandemic, people can’t eat out and meet as they might have. Hence, online dating apps have had to evolve and add new features in order to stay interesting to their users. They have come up with quizzes that a matched couple can play to understand each other better. Some apps like Hinge have added an in-built video call option so people can verify who they’re talking to before meeting them. The dating landscape has been completely changed by digital, and the COVID lockdown has brought some future innovations forward.

Domination of online payment gateways

The financial services sector and the realm of payment gateways have seen several changes as the lockdown progressed. The number of people using physical cash decreased dramatically, and the number of payment gateways like PayTM, PhonePe, GooglePay, AmazonPay, etc., increased, as people started paying utilities online. Today, a single portal can be a window into paying for many different services, a great point of convenience during the lockdown.

Final thoughts

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has caused worldwide distress, with cases piling up everyday, and businesses getting disrupted. However, the world is finding its feet albeit a little slowly. During the initial stages of the virus, people were scrambling with little to no idea about what to do. There was a massive rush with hoarding of essential items, etc. Businesses everywhere had come to a virtual standstill. The images of abandoned cars and planes, unused shopping carts etc, still haunt us today. During this period of seeming inactivity, one industry managed to show growth. It was the delivery business. With people unwilling to go outside their homes, everything started to get delivered. It began slowly with essential items like medicines and groceries, and today has even moved on to liquor.

Here is how the COVID 19 situation has impacted delivery businesses.

Grocery Delivery

Groceries were the first item that naturally people wanted as soon as they found themselves cut off from the outside world. In India, firms like BigBasket and Grofers were already doing business. As the pandemic wore on, food delivery applications like Swiggy also started grocery delivery options. India’s online grocery retail market is set to touch $ 10.5 billion by 2023, rising in percentage from 0.2% to 1.2% of the food market of the country (source).

The constantly rising number of internet and smartphone users, coupled with the ease of purchase, high quality and quick delivery of groceries online, has led to a surge in online grocery shopping which witnessed a boost during the COVID-19 situation. The market has grown during the pandemic so much, that major players like Amazon have started aggressively expanding their Amazon Pantry services in India, offering discounts to consumers and even a pay-per-month subscription method to buy groceries. With the lockdown restrictions slowly getting lifted, people are venturing outside to buy vegetables again, but there are many who would prefer ordering online just because of the convenience. As COVID-19 became more widespread, it was the grocery delivery model that took off first, setting the trend for other delivery businesses to follow.

Food Delivery Business

The food delivery business was already thriving before the pandemic hit, but suffered during the initial stages when total lockdown was imposed. However, the various governments worldwide slowly reviewed and relaxed restrictions, and food delivery was allowed, given that food is an essential item. However, the industry did face a lot of initial losses. Swiggy in India, was forced to lay off around 1000 employees, while closest rival Zomato let go of a number of people (source).

Things slowly started to turn around as the rules were dropped a little. Then all of a sudden, there was a surge in orders as people just started relying on outside food. Zomato started recovering economically and even acquired a rival firm UberEats (source).

People have been ordering online for a considerable period, and with the lockdown forcing them to stay indoors, their frequency of ordering has only increased. (source).

Parcel Delivery Services

This is an avenue that opened up a lot when the lockdown was imposed. People had to send items to one another. Hence applications like Dunzo have seen an increased number of downloads.

Parcel delivery services have also been started by other applications most notably Swiggy, which will bring you anything from a set of keys to a pile of books. Parcel delivery companies place certain restrictions on the weight and the kind of parcel that you are allowed to send, because the carriers usually use bikes. Hence, the scope is limited in the sense that you can only send small packages. Yet, this business has grown due to its incredible usefulness to the general public during COVID-19.

Liquor Delivery Services

In India, when the lockdown restrictions were lifted, and liquor retail shops reopened, there were reported lines outside stores of people waiting to pick up their favorite tipple. Picking up on this demand, liquor delivery services began in full earnest. Cashing on the COVID-19 lockdown, Swiggy was one of the earliest players to start online liquor delivery. You need to verify your age and identity and then order whatever you wish. Amazon is to enter the segment soon, while Spencer Retail’s HipBar is another app that allows users to deliver alcohol directly to their homes (source).

Delivery of personal grooming services

Due to the COVID-19 situation, many people found themselves robbed of their weekly/monthly salon/parlour visits. Due to this, there has been a rise in the demand of personal grooming services. UrbanCompany allows you to book a barber’s appointment at your convenience. A person is sent to your house, and takes all the precautions before giving a haircut. The delivery of personal grooming services has opened up an otherwise non-existent market. Now, people are getting pedicures at home as well as deep-tissue massages. The revenues of UrbanCompany have been growing steadily, and the firm has constantly been diversifying its services (source).

Hence, the delivery business has been impacted by COVID-19 in both a positive and a negative way. The first effects were felt at the onset of the pandemic, as it was for every business. However, as various industries started operating again, many people realised that delivery of goods and services is the only way forward. Plus, there is the concept of contactless delivery, which has put fears of people to rest.

While the lockdown might be easing in many parts of the world, consumers are still wary of venturing out. Which is why hyperlocal delivery players have become very important in enabling rapid deliveries for consumers. The items can range from documents to household goods, food, medicines, alcohol, and personal grooming services. As of now, the delivery business industry seems to be growing, and firms are even hiring to fill roles arising out of rapid expansion (source). All this points to an industry poised for growth, both during and after the times of COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic raises many problems in the domain of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The major challenges are often raised by way of so many pertinent questions such as, can AI help to keep an eye on the outbreak and predict the quantum of spread? Can AI apply to assist with diagnosis and prognosis as well? Could it be utilized in a quest for proper treatment and subsequent hunt for the exact vaccine? Will it be used to govern the social factors?

There are a plethora of questions expected to be answered, and people are anxious to know everything. This blog is an effort to facilitate an honest analysis of how AI has progressed in this respect so far, and to note down limitations, weaknesses, and concerned drawbacks. The relevant research is aptly affected by the dearth of proper data and increasing conflict between imperatives on public health and data privacy issues.

To keep tabs on and predicting the future

In theory, AI can be used for monitoring and predicting how the COVID-19 disease would spread its wings over time and space. However, in December 2019, an AI-driven Health Map module at the venue of Boston Children’s Hospital (USA) triggered one of the first alarm bells that were a warning given by a scientist at the site of PMED (Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases).

Even so, AI has not been very effective up to now for any further tracking and predictive analytics of how COVID-19 will spread. That is because of a variety of reasons. The first and foremost is that for AI to desperately need data on COVID-19 for a proper drill down.

However, a variety of exciting projects have commenced collecting and exchanging data, both existing and fresh, to train new AI applications and machine learning. Now, these projects entail the global work on the Coronavirus Disease database initiated by the World Health Organization (WHO) in terms of giving access to other related enterprises.

There is also a second opinion as to why AI has not been quite helpful in monitoring and foreseeing disease spread thus far. Not only is this a paucity of piling historical training data, but it is also an account of issues exploiting big data extracted from social media. In the recent fiasco of Google Flu Patterns, it highlighted the limitations of AI and big data in the scope of infectious diseases.

Owing to a lack of evidence, chaotic social media big data hubris, algorithmic dynamics, and outlier data, AI predictions of the outbreak of COVID-19 are still not very accurate or robust. The majority of frameworks used for monitoring and making predictions thus far do not use AI technologies. Rather, a majority of forecast modules prefer conventional epidemiological patterns.

To chase down the mushrooming of COVID-19 in real-time, a true application for the data creation dashboard has surfaced to visualize the existence of the virus. The first, and most customarily used, is that of the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins. The data created and made accessible through this dashboard can be found in a GitHub repository, so to say.

Attempts for diagnosis and prognosis

Besides potentially monitoring and anticipating the transmission of COVID-19, AI may also be deftly used in disease diagnosis as well as its prognosis. Actually, perhaps it is where most of the AI initiatives have been given due recognition.

Rapid and precise COVID-19 diagnosis will save innumerable human lives, restrict disease contamination, and trigger data to train AI applications. There is an increasing endeavour to educate people through AI models to use chest X-ray images to detect COVID-19.

Even though it has been confirmed that a host of Chinese health care facilities have deployed AI-driven radiology techniques, the prospects of AI are not yet converted into practice. Radiologists elsewhere have voiced alarm that not sufficient data can teach AI applications, that many of the available COVID-19 samples come from Chinese laboratories. Also, they may surely suffer from self-selection, and that the use of X-rays and CT scans may infect relevant equipment and are further prone to the spread of the disease.

It appears that relatively less effort has been made to use AI for diagnostic processes at a primary stage. For example, determining whether anyone is contaminated before it appears in CT scans or X-rays in making data-driven diagnoses with less chance of contamination.

Vaccines and treatments

A third dimension where AI may theoretically contribute to combating COVID-19 is the detection of alternative therapies and vaccines. Years before the COVID-19 outbreak, AI had been suitably admired for its ability to contribute to the development of the newer approach of antidotes.

In the scenario of COVID-19, plenty of data centres and research laboratories have already confirmed that they are trying to engage AI to find an opening in terms of the COVID-19 vaccine. The idea is that AI will speed up both the cycle of developing new drugs and the savaging existing drugs. A lot of scientists have claimed to have found repurposing drugs, to say the least.

Such medications (especially a vaccine) are unlikely to be available soon, and certainly to be of great use during the ongoing pandemic situation. The explanation is that it will take some time for the scientific and medical tests, tracking, and controls to be carried out before such vaccines are released once they are detected and tested, which might take as long a period as up to 18 months.

Social management

One of the foremost objectives for AI lies in social control and management in the campaign against the COVID-19 outbreak. It is asserted that AI application is imminent to manage the alarming spread of pandemic via the implementation of thermal imaging to scan the open realm for conceivably infected people and by supporting social distancing and lockdown metrics.

Infrared cameras are taken into consideration at airports and railway stations all over to scan throngs of people for the lookout of high temperatures. Often, they are shown with a system of facial recognition that can identify the person suffering from high temperature and whether he or she is donning a surgical mask.So even though using AI Information to identify and treat COVID-19 is hindered by a lack of critical historical databases, there are no AI resources like robots and computer vision. Hence, in the short term, people are more expected to see this form of AI to be utilized for social control as an extra effort.

Conclusion

To summarize, AI can be a fundamental tool in fighting COVID-19 and related pandemics. The assumption is that issues related to public health will outweigh data privacy issues. There could be mission creep, with policymakers and statutory bodies maintaining their exceptional monitoring of common citizens long past the pandemic is subsided. Concerns over data privacy degradation are thus ably founded. AI-powered Chatbots provided by Let’s Nurture proves to be a great business plan in tracking the Covid19 outbreak. If you are looking for technology service providers, we are right here to guide you through your prospects. Please feel free to contact us

With an estimated 55% of adults looking to own a smart speaker by the time 2022 hits, it is easy to see why voice-activated technology has become a disruptive force in the business to the consumer communications field. With more than 20% of all searches being voice-led and 50% of consumers using voice-activated tech on a daily basis, businesses are getting excited about the influence and impact it has on marketing strategies. Let’s take a look at what voice-activated tech is, how it is impacting consumers, and how marketers are utilizing it.

What Is Voice-activated Tech, What Does it Need to Work & How Many Types Are There?

Voice-activated tech, as the name suggests, is any piece of technology that can be activated and used with only a human operator’s voice as opposed to the need for buttons and dials. More commonly known today as Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), voice-activated tech has been integrated into devices such as personal computers and mobile phones, and even in military applications such as F-16 fighter Jets. ASR software works by capturing a user’s voice through a microphone and translating it through a sound card into commands a computer can recognize and follow like “call father” and “open the web, search Lego toys” to name a few. There are several types of ASR, each with a distinctive and identifying feature of how it operates. Some ASR software requires “training” or rather, the user to read a passage so that their unique voice can be recognized and is called a Speaker Dependent System. Inversely, A Speaker Independent System is able to recognize multiple speakers without the need for any initial attunement. Furthermore, a Discrete Speech Recognition system requires users to pause between each word, while a Continuous Speech Recognition System allows for a more natural speed. Finally, a Natural Language ASR is able to understand and accurately respond to questions asked of it.

How Voice-activated Tech Impacts Consumers & How Marketers Are Using It?

Voice-activated tech is impacting both consumers and markets and here is how.

Consumers

Consumers are using it to make informed buying decisions.

Add items to their shopping carts.

Compare product pricing.

Place one-time orders.

Reorder products that are out of stock.

Find business phone numbers to call.

Enjoy daily news briefings.

Get walkthroughs of recipes.

Enjoy puzzles and games (Skill Apps).

Marketers

Content marketers are emphasizing on short-form content offerings, concise answers, and quick feature-rich snippets.

Marketers are aiming to get featured snippets on Google to hit position zero in the voice-search.

Marketers are integrating and delivering voice-enabled chatbots to help deliver relevant and helpful content that is in relation to the spoken search.

Skill apps are being developed to engage consumers in other relevant ways.

What the Future Marketing Space Will Look Like with Voice-activated Tech?

With 24% of internet users preferring to use a voice-activated, personal assistant over a traditional website to interact with their favourite companies, it is easy to see why 43% of companies are investing in this technology for marketing purposes. While some brands have got an early start into space, numerous others are jumping in this year as the future marketing space is beginning to heat up. Here is what it will look like going into 2020.

Digital voice-activated assistants are being used to shop online: While this has been spoken about for many years as a trend that will slowly grow as consumers become more acquainted with voice-activated devices, we are now actually seeing it happen. Consumers may not be placing as many orders as what was predicted, but they are certainly using them to make informed buying decisions, compare the prices on products, or even add items to their shopping carts. And the big-name brands are catching onto this voice-based commerce experience and using it to personalize their marketing strategies. Brands like Johnnie Walker, Domino’s and Nestle are integrating voice technology into their current systems in order to provide a better, quicker, and more personalized shopping experience. While voice is only valued at $2 bn, it is expected to skyrocket to $40 bn by 2022.

Big enterprising companies are going to fully integrate digital assistants for internal use: Large business to business (B2B) brands like Salesforce, which is a cloud-based software company, is jumping into the digital assistant conversation by launching their own extensions of the voice-platform. With Salesforce, they have launched Einstein Voice which is an extension of their Einstein platform, which handles the data, infrastructure, modelling and prep work needed to embed and scale predictive models into Salesforce specific applications. These applications include building AI-powered apps (customized) that utilize the power of image recognition and natural language processing, and real-time analytics using customized dashboards. Beyond this, Salesforce has also developed Einstein Bots which allows their customers to build their own voice-activated assistant with customized branding.

How Is This Tech Integrated into Future Marketing?

Content marketers will need to create short-form content products that provide quick and crisp answers to users through voice search. On the SEO side, marketers will need to have the information appear as featured snippets on Google, and there will be a demand for traditional SERP results. To have these work well, marketers will need to understand spoken word search behaviours and the informational needs of their users.

Why Marketers Are & Should Continue to Embrace Voice-activated Tech?

Marketers can tap into some major benefits from voice-driven strategies that centre around outshining the competition, converting customers, and increasing one’s search engine optimization. Voice-activated tech brings in new content-consumer interactions that change how customers interact with brands, for the better.

Reap the benefits of increasing sales opportunities: Consumers using voice-activated tech are far more likely to be open to receiving promotions and deals, which means increased sales opportunities for businesses. According to the research, 52% of consumers want to actually hear about promotions and deals available to them and 42% want personalized information that pertains to upcoming events they are interested in. With the right voice-activated strategy, businesses can reap major benefits in the sales department.

Increase inbound traffic via business phone calls from customers. When a consumer voice-searches up a business, they are far more likely just looking for the phone number of that business. It is easier to voice-search a business and say, “call” then it is to type in the business name, find the phone number, type it into your phone, and dial. According to recent statistics, 28% of people who search up a business will end up calling them. This converts into 10-15X the revenue than web leads and it converts customers 30% faster3.

Improve your brand’s search engine optimization. When using voice-activated search terms, the user can speak more complex phrases and the result will still be efficient and quick. When compared to typing in complex product names or key phrases, voice search is a lot more accurate. This improves a brand’s search engine efficiency as voice-activated tech productively enhances how accurately a specific term comes up.

Stand out from your competition. With a traditional text-based search through the Google search engine, the consumer sees up to 10-15 listings, some of which are ads, and some of which are actually branded listings. Despite ranking on the first page, whether you are in the first-place position or not, your company is competing against every single other listing on page one to three (most consumers don’t click past three). This means that you are not guaranteed a conversion. With voice search, only one result can be pulled up – this is position zero and if you can get into this position, you are going to dominate the spoken search term. This gives you a massive leg up on your competition and makes you stand out, regardless of which voice-activated device is used.

Voice-activated Technology & Let’s Nurture

As voice-activated technology continues to move into the spotlight like the way to go, it is key that all types of organizations look to integrate it into their marketing mix. Here at Let’s Nurture, we have expertise in developing and creating custom voice-based skills development and voice-enabled applications that integrate with both the existing web and mobile devices for end-consumer solutions. We utilize SDKs, and APIs to build customized and personalized voice-assistant development for enterprises who want to get into the voice-activated tech market. For further queries about how we can help you, contact us or write to us at [email protected]

The World Health Organization (WHO) provides the definition of telemedicine as “healing from a distance“. it’s the employment of telecommunications technology and data technologies to provide remote clinical services to patients. Telemedicine includes the utilization of electronic correspondences and software to offer clinical service to patients without an in-person visit.

The utilization of virtual visits running as securely treating patients and containing the spread of the disease at emergency clinics, centers, and clinical workplaces.

In 1922, Dr. Hugo Gernsback highlighted the teledactyl in a science magazine. Gernsback anticipated that this tangible input gadget would allow doctors to see their patients through a TV screen and contact them from miles away with robot arms.

The first radiologic pictures were sent by means of the phone between two clinical staff at two diverse wellbeing places in Pennsylvania by 1948. The wellbeing communities were 24 miles separated from each other! At that point in 1959, doctors at the University of Nebraska transmitted neurological assessments across grounds to clinical understudies utilizing two-way intuitive TV. After five years, a CC TV interface was constructed that permitted doctors to give mental meetings 112 miles away at Norfolk State Hospital.

By monitoring more patients virtually, Intermountain will be able to limit the potential exposure of nurses who conduct home visits.

Doctors and Patients Turn to Telemedicine during the Coronavirus Outbreak

The practice of telemedicine cuts down personal interactions between patients and the doctors and healthcare provider, and it’s useful when handling infectious diseases

As the world apparatuses to handle the danger from novel coronavirus, human services laborers and senior specialists in the state are gnawing enthusiastic about telemedicine

Telemedicine helps to avoid crowding of emergency cases of Covid-19 caseload.

Virtual counsel could decrease superfluous visits. In the potential pandemic setting expanded consideration must be paid to the potential transmission in congested closed spaces.

When the patient is analyzed in their own homes, specialists and the medicinal services framework will have the option to trigger and screen a greater number of patients than during in-person consultation.

Benefits of telemedicine screening for COVID-19

Telemedicine increase access to care Distance and time of travel between patients and care providers may restrict access to treatment.telemedicine is fortunate to be able to transcend regional barriers to healthcare, particularly for specialist providers.telemedicine may be of great value to patients in medically underserved areas and those in remote geographic regions where there is a shortage of clinicians.

Telemedicine reduces the cost of healthcare Telemedicine may improve treatment quality, reduce patient care costs or transport to another location and even keep patients out of the hospital.

Telemedicine is enhancing conventional face-to-face treatment A strong doctor-patient relationship is the foundation for high-quality patient care and reducing health care costs. Telemedicine should support, Telemedicine should bolster, not supplant, customary consideration conveyance. With telemedicine care suppliers can keep on thinking about patients in-person care while as yet giving the adaptability and accommodation of seeing patients remotely for follow up visits, registration, and training when fitting or important.

carer

Welcome to Curam – you are on your way to becoming part of our fairer care community. 

Soon, you will join the many carers all across the UK who value the freedom and flexibility of working as a self-employed carer through Curam. With Curam, you’ll be able to set your own fees, working with clients you have chosen. You’ll also benefit from paying the lowest rates in the sector (only 12.5%). 

As one of our newly signed carers said “at last a company working for carers”.

This carer guide will tell you how to use Curam to access hundreds of care placements all across the UK. Discover how simple it is to join – just 20 minutes and you’re done.

If you prefer, we’ve even made a How to Sign Up video to explain.

STEP 1 – Sign Up

If you haven’t already, this is how to sign up - create a Curam account with your contact details.

STEP 2 – Complete Profile

Create an online profile. This is like an online CV - a way for clients to see what a great carer you are.  Here, you’ll write a short profile statement called a ‘Bio’. Don’t worry, we can help you write a Curam Carer profile so you’ll know how to impress clients.

Attach a good photo. It’s a great way to make a positive first impression on clients.  

Next, highlight your care condition expertise, hobbies, languages and qualifications.

Finally, tell people what you charge. This can be an hourly rate or an overnight/ day fee. Just don’t forget the fee you advertise will include our 12.5% rate (the lowest in the sector). For example, if you advertise at £15, you will receive £13.13 an hour.

STEP 3 – Essential Admin

Upload your documents: National Insurance Number, DBS, PVG or NI Access number and references.

STEP 4 – Book An Interview

You’re almost there. We’d love to have an informal chat before we can approve your application. This will take about 15 minutes. Simply, book a telephone interview with one of our friendly Curam team at a time which suits you.  

Welcome to Curam!

ViewChat App is a discussion platform that allows live TV audience to join the chat rooms for ongoing TV shows.

Unlock a new world of social networking with ViewChat application that engages users to discuss live and the most popular US TV shows. Find out the most popular TV shows with a single tap on your ViewChat App and join the first-ever Mobile TV Club.

Play Store:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.viewchat.android

App Store:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/viewchat/id1472969027?ls=1

Here is one of the blog on

The Best Tv Shows 2020, So Far

TV and streaming series and motion pictures have performed a huge service so greatly this year in providing some much-needed escapism in a world crippled by wellness.

To help viewers still restrained to their homes navigate the latest offerings, we assembled all of the Certified Fresh series and upcoming tv programs 2020 — the season premieres that occurred January through the present that is Fresh with at least 20 critics reviews (five of those being from Top Critics).

From 1999 on, viewers were lucky enough to be treated to what many referred to as “The Golden Age of Television.” Shows like The Sopranos, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and Game of Thrones brought a previously unheard-of level of quality to the small screen, and things like Lost DVD box sets and Stranger Things on Netflix taught people how to binge-watch.

We’re not even a quarter of the way into 2020 yet, but given the sheer volume of new TV releases out there on a weekly basis, we are coming up with the discussion platform that allows live TV audiences to join the chat rooms for ongoing TV shows.

THE YEAR’S SURPRISES SO FAR AMONG THE BEST TV OF 2020:

THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA (HBO)

THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA, a limited series based on the acclaimed Philip Roth novel of the similar name, imagines an alternate American history during World War II, told through the eyes of a common laborers Jewish family in New Jersey as they endure the political rise of Charles Lindbergh, a pilot saint and xenophobic populist, who captures the presidency and turns the country toward one-party rule. Made by visit associates David Simon and Ed Burns (HBO’s “The Wire” and “Generation Kill”), the six-part limited series exclusively on HBO.

Creators:

Ed Burns, David Simon

Stars:

Winona Ryder, Anthony Boyle, Zoe Kazan | See full cast & crew

Taglines:

Freedom is Never Completely Won. But It Can Be Lost.

Discuss The plot against America on our mobile application

FOX & FRIENDS (FOX NEWS)

A morning news show that includes interviews, features, and banter among the hosts.This weekday morning news show is hosted by Fox News Channel stalwarts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade, alongside later expansion Ainsley Earhardt. Regular features include medical contributors, reports from entertainment journalists, and interviews with newsmakers. Throughout the mid-year, “FOX and Friends” has an open-air show arrangement like other network morning shows.

Creators:

Fox News

Stars:

Steve Doocy, Brian Kilmeade, Ainsley Earhardt

Discuss Fox & Friends on our mobile application

MANIFEST SEASON 2 (NBC)

Manifest is an American supernatural drama television series, created by Jeff Rake, that premiered on September 24, 2018, on NBC. The series centers on the passengers and crew of a successful airliner who suddenly reappear after being presumed dead for more than five yearsAfter being considered dead, 191 passengers of the Montego Air Flight 828 try to reintegrate into the society. However, painful realities come to light which unsettles them.

Creators:

Jeff Rake

Stars:

Melissa Roxburgh, Josh Dallas, Athena Karkanis, J. R. Ramirez, Luna Blaise, Jack Messina, Parveen Kaur

Discuss Manifest Season 2 on our mobile application

BRIARPATCH (USA NETWORK)

A senator’s aide responds to her small corrupt hometown of San Bonifacio, TX near the U.S.-Mexico border to examine the death of her sister – a local cop killed by a car bomb. She unravels a complex web of lies, crimes, and plots.Based on the Ross Thomas novel of the same name, “Briarpatch” follows Allegra Dill, a dogged investigator who returns to her border-town home in San Bonifacio, Texas. What begins as a search for her sister’s killer turns into an all-consuming fight to bring the corrupt town to its knees. “Briarpatch’ celebrates a unique blend of crime, thriller, mystery, and pulp fiction.

Creators:

Andy Greenwald

Stars:

Rosario Dawson, Jay R. Ferguson, Edi Gathegi

Discuss Briarpatch on our mobile application

BETTER CALL SAUL (SEASON 5) (AMC)

The trials and tribulations of criminal lawyer Jimmy McGill in the time before he built his strip-mall law office in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Better Call Saul

is an American television crime drama series created by Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould. It is a prequel and spin-off of Gilligan’s prior series Breaking Bad. Set in the early to mid-2000s, the series follows the story of con-man turned small-time lawyer Jimmy McGill (played by Bob Odenkirk), starting six years before the events of Breaking Bad and showing his transformation into the persona of criminal for hire Saul Goodman. McGill becomes the lawyer for former police officer Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks), whose skills allow him to enter the criminal underworld of drug trafficking in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The show premiered on AMC on February 8, 2015, airing five seasons to date. A sixth and final season is scheduled to air in 2021.

Creators:

Vince Gilligan, Peter Gould

Stars:

Bob Odenkirk, Rhea Seehorn, Jonathan Banks

Discuss Better call saul on our mobile application

ANIMAL KINGDOM: SEASON 5 (TNT)

Centers on a Southern California family, whose excessive lifestyle is fueled by their criminal activities.

Animal Kingdom

is an American drama television series developed by Jonathan Lisco. It is based on the 2010 Australian film of the same name by David Michôd, who is an executive producer for the series, alongside Liz Watts who also produced the movie. The series features a 17-year-old boy, who, after the death of his mother, moves in with his estranged relatives, the Codys, a criminal family clan governed by matriarch Smurf. Ellen Barkin portrayed the leading role of Janine “Smurf” Cody in the first four seasons, played by Jacki Weaver in the 2010 film.

Creators:

Jonathan Lisco

Stars:

Shawn Hatosy, Ben Robson, Jake Weary

Discuss Animal Kingdom on our mobile application

MRS. AMERICA: SEASON 1 (FX NETWORKS)

Conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly led a wonderful fight against the Equal Rights Amendment act during the 1970s.“Mrs. America,” recounts the story of the development to sanction the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), and the startling kickback driven by a traditionalist lady named Phyllis Schlafly, otherwise known as “the darling of the silent majority.” Through the eyes of the ladies of the time – both Schlafly and second-wave women’s activists Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Shirley Chisholm, Bella Abzug, and Jill Ruckelshaus – the arrangement investigates how perhaps the hardest battleground in the way of life wars of the ’70s helped offer ascent to the Moral Majority and forever shifted moved the political scene.

Creators:

Dahvi waller

Stars:

Cate Blanchett, Rose Byrne, Sarah Paulson, Elizabeth Banks

Discuss Mrs. America on our mobile application

THE LAST DANCE (ESPN)

Charting the beginning of the 1990’s Chicago Bulls, led by Michael Jordan, one of the most important dynasties in sports history.In the fall of 1997, Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls permitted a film team to follow them as they went for their 6th NBA title in eight seasons. That brought about a dazzling picture of one of the game’s most famous competitors and a commended group. “The Last Dance” follows the Bulls’ 1997-98 season all the way, while additionally covering the remainder of the parts in Jordan’s amazing vocation. The 10-section docu-arrangement follows the Jordan course of events from when he was a rising star in his secondary school group to turning into an overall showcasing the power and social figure.

Creators:

Jason Hehir

Stars:

Phill Jackson, Michel Jordan Devid Aldridge

Discuss The Last Danceon our mobile application Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.viewchat.android

As the novel coronavirus, also known as Covid-19, continues to spread across the globe at an alarming rate, the world-wide ramifications of lockdown measures are hitting multinational and local retailers hard. With consumers staying home to curb the spread, various sectors within the retail industry are seeing varying degrees of lulls, spikes, and demands as human to human contact is minimized. While online ordering and shipping have increased exponentially, supermarkets are seeing a rise in sales, and supply chains are seeing major disruptions. Unsurprisingly, as our daily routines change from our normalized freedom to restriction in movement and increased anxiety, the world is changing right along with it and retailers are scrambling to adapt. Let’s take a look at the impact of coronavirus on retail and in what ways technology can help in this time of uncertainty.

Where Are Retail Execs Focusing Their Attention?

Attention is on Demand Fluctuations: As physical markets are shutting their doors due to quarantine orders, many are seeing a precarious drop off in foot traffic as individuals do not want to risk contracting the virus or breaking the law by not adhering to official health guidelines. This has led retailers to monitor the demand fall away and shift their consumer channels, while other retailers like pharmacies and grocery stores are seeing a massive spike. The ability to predict and manage the demand for the remainder of the pandemic is critical.

Attention is on Liquidity and business sustenance: We are seeing retailers with physical footprints, rethink their cash positions and access liquidity in order to pay the bills and deal with the downturn in demand. Retailers are now looking at how they can take advantage of emergency hardship funds and engaging with lenders to refinance loans in order to revive their financial stability.

Attention is on Protecting Employees: Workplace shutdowns, no human-to-human contact, and the need to wear protective gear at all times while still trying to maintain business, is difficult to say the least. Retailers are addressing the challenges by filling in gaps with temporary workers in overcrowded departments, requiring employees to wear masks and gloves at all times, and even placing up glass or plastic barriers at cash registers in essential businesses that remain open.

Attention is on Long-Term Supply Challenges: While grocery stores have a different set of problems with maintaining a high demand for supplies, non-food retailers are weathering drops in demand coupled with slow-to-move inventory. Short-terms supply is not an issue, but as more disruptions arise, retailers need to be talking with key suppliers to manage their risks for long-term supply.

Attention is on Customer Experience: Retailers are also focusing on how to maintain the trust of their customers, manage their expectations, and how to recover from the pandemic with a positive customer experience.

A Snapshot of the Retail Sector Based on Consumers

In the UK, supermarkets saw a 20.6% increase in sales during March as consumers chose to stockpile supplies and forego purchasing take out food from restaurants. Brand-owned convenience stores also saw a spike in sales by almost 30%.

Amazon sales skyrocket, experiencing volumes similar to that of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. As a result, Amazon is hiring 100,000 new warehouse staff and raising the salary temporarily by an extra $2 per hour.

Millennials and Gen Z individuals are concerned about the pandemic and its effects on the economy and as a result, are stock piling food, medical, and essential items while spending less on experiences. Older generations, those coined Boomers and Gen Xers are also concerned but are not impacted nearly as much, with only 24% of Boomers and 34% of Gen Xer’s allowing the pandemic to impact their spending habits.

How Can Technology Help Us During Covid-19?

Online Ordering. With the closure of most physical retailers, online ordering is booming and thankfully too, as it is the only way to currently get items that are not from a grocery store or pharmacy. Retailers must focus on upgrading their online ordering systems so that customers have a smooth experience. Online ordering is the only way to now get contactless delivery from the majority of places and is the only way to stay completely safe from the virus. Combine this with mandatory shelter in place orders, and online ordering becomes the only way people can get access to goods and services.

Virtual Try-On With Smart Mirrors. When it comes to shopping for cosmetics or clothing, you would normally go into the shop of your choice and try on a new shade or a new dress in the fitting room. With Covid-19 causing massive rifts in both fashion and retail, many companies are integrating smart mirrors and virtual try-on software into their websites and mobile applications. This gives retailers the option to still cater to shoppers without needing them to ever leave their home. For instance, Amsale New York is catering to their bride and bridesmaid customers by offering them virtual try-ons for their complete wedding wardrobe and bridesmaids collections. It is likely that other retailers will follow suit.

Shift Management Systems. In the wake of Covid-19, hundreds of thousands of companies have had to shift into a remote working environment as having employees come into the office just isn’t practical. This sudden need to provide employees with ways to work from home has presented many logistical problems, which is where shift management software can help.Companies like Slack and Microsoft are making their cloud productivity suites free for small businesses for the next six months, in an attempt to help the world adapt to remote work. Beyond offering their productivity suites, features like business chat software, consultations, and video conferencing options have had their limitations lifted as well. It is important that businesses of all sizes look into shift management systems and collaborative programs that can aid their employees with staying on top of projects. Many of these shift management systems have timelines, task lists, collaborative chatting, and video conferencing to aid in the seamless transference of work from worker to worker.

Catalogue Apps & Websites. As a retailer, having an online catalogue website or mobile application is far more important now than it ever was before. With hundreds of thousands of more people shopping online, having your products and services easily accessible through a catalogue system is critical for making sales. A product catalogue app will show off all of your products in a gallery mode-type, which gives potential buyers the ability to track their favorite products, the pricing of products and services, as well as product descriptions and manufacturers. It offers a seamless and smooth user-experience which is necessary during heavy-traffic load times.

Digital Marketing of Products and Services. With the cancellation of trade shows, events, and little to no foot traffic, businesses are going to need to rely on digital marketing strategies now more than ever. The shift to remote work and collaboration, means that companies must embrace digital channels and transform if they want to survive the pandemic. This means launching new e-commerce channels, creating social media campaigns, using influencers, and updating websites to focus more on search engine optimization in order to reach their audiences.

he overall market of IoT healthcare is expected to reach $534.5.3 billion by the year 2025, with the compound annual growth rate increasing by 29.6% in the next five years. These numbers are expected to be much higher now, considering the global pandemic we are facing, and trying to tackle collectively. The most significant benefit of IoT medical gadgets is that they make it easier for health professionals to do their jobs, by providing them with essential and accurate information. On the outset, it might appear that IoT in medical services offers ordinary results. However, these services have the potential to improve patient outcomes significantly while at the same time easing the burden of physical presence, on health practitioners.

How IoT Solutions are making a difference in Health care

Using intelligent health solutions can make things easier for all parties concerned. Let us elaborate a bit more on this.

IoT apps  in healthcare institutes

The use of IoT apps in healthcare institutes, can make sure that patients are handled in an efficient and effective manner. Communications can become more streamlined, making coordination easier. Thus, the quality of healthcare will consequently improve.

It would become convenient to organize all the data about patients, at a macro level. The data will also be beneficial for research making advancements in the medical field more probable. 

IoT for Patients

With intelligent cloud solutions, patients can get more control over their health. The rate of readmissions would be reduced as the relationship with their healthcare providers will be managed remotely.

IoT for Physicians

Physicians can ensure that patient care is efficiently coordinated. They can share patient insights, thereby ensuring that patient care is enhanced. Furthermore, IoT for physicians can also improve compliance as timely communication will be guaranteed. Thus, there would be fewer chances of the patient suffering because he was unable to access the physician on time.

The physicians can also use IoT medical services to tailor treatments and provide the patient with personalized care by ensuring remote monitoring. 

IoT for Hospitals

IoT can do a world of good for the hospitals. Operational costs can be reduced significantly. Furthermore, the outcomes can be improved as patterns and trends will become more apparent. Data systems will be connected, and thus healthcare delivery will be enhanced. The chances of errors going undetected will decrease.

IoT for Health Insurance Companies

Health insurance companies need to keep tabs on the data of the patient so that they can deal with claims effectively. IoT will make this organization of data feasible and thus reduce the incidences of having to fight claims unnecessarily.

The thing about IoT medical services is that it can benefit all involved parties, whether it is the patient, hospital, or the pharmaceutical industry. For instance, counterfeit drugs are a threat to health. IoT solutions can be used to combat these challenges effectively.

IoT in Healthcare: Advantages, Challenges, and benefits

There is no denying that the use of IoT in healthcare can bring about a revolution and enhance patient care and user experience significantly.

Benefits

Let us first take a look at some of the advantages that IoT offers in the healthcare industry, which would prompt you to consider IoT solutions and apps more commonly.

Monitoring and reporting

Lives can be saved during medical emergencies with the help of real-time monitoring that connected devices can offer. A smart device can be connected to an app, and the connected devices can then collect required health data, transferring it to a physician, thereby ensuring that patients receive timely care.

The data that can be collected and transferred via devices include blood sugar levels, blood pressure, saturation level, and weight, among other things.

Affordability

Patient care workflow can be automated via the right IoT solution. Information exchange, along with data movement, will be enhanced, which can bring down the costs as the patient would not have to make unnecessary visits to the hospital. Therefore, resources would be utilized in a better manner.

Collection and analysis of data

The Healthcare industry has a large amount of data to organize. IoT can make this easier. Storage and managing data will become convenient with real-time applications. Analysis of this data will also be done in a short time, ensuring that errors and mistakes are detected on time. IoT app development for data collection can make an organization feasible for hospitals.

Tracking

Life-threatening emergencies require timely action. An on-time alert can save lives. Vital data can be transferred to the doctors via real-time monitoring, regardless of time and place. Thus, the right decisions can be taken on time.

Research

Research is crucial in the medical field so that new treatments can be formulated and advancements can be made. IoT solutions can save time and money by collecting data that can be used in statistical studies.

Challenges

While IoT is indeed highly beneficial for the healthcare industry, there are some challenges that warrant attention as well.

Security and privacy

Perhaps the biggest issue that needs to be dealt with when it comes to IoT is data security. IoT is used for transmission of data. When the protocols or standards of data security are not followed, there is a risk of the information falling into the wrong hands. Personal health information can then be compromised as cybercriminals can use the data of patients to purchase drugs and equipment.

Integration of multiple devices

It might be tricky to integrate numerous devices at the same time, causing a hindrance in healthcare. There might be a difference in the communication protocol of various devices, which can slow down the process.

Accuracy

Data aggregation can be a challenging feat due to varying protocols and standards in different devices. The huge amount of data can be difficult to sort through got a healthcare professional, and thus the quality of decision making can be affected.

Final words

The risk of pneumonia is enormous for many, especially in the nations where billions face energy poverty and rely on polluting forms of energy. “The WHO estimates that over 4 million premature deaths occur annually from household air pollution-related diseases including pneumonia” – WHO

Pneumonia, an AI-driven web app developed by Let’s Nurture, is an easy to use Pneumonia detector from Chest X-ray Images.

The Challenge

Build an AI to detect whether a victim is suffering from pneumonia or not just by looking at chest X-ray images.

A CNN (convolutional neural network) model trained from scratch to classify the presence of pneumonia from a collection of chest X-ray images data. We at Let’s Nurture constructed a convolutional neural network model to get features from a given chest X-ray image.DatasetThe original dataset consists of three main folders (training, testing, and validation folders) and two subfolders containing pneumonia (P) and normal (N) chest X-ray images, respectively. This dataset was organized and carried out as part of patients’ routine medical care. The dataset can be downloaded from the Kaggle website which can be found

here.

How does CNN actually see the images?

A CNN (convolutional neural network or ConvNet) is one of the most used and effective algorithms for deep learning, in which a model learns to perform classification tasks directly from images, video, text, or sound.

Image Kernels by Victor Powell

]In the past couple of years, cutting edge technology has started to become available to the software development community. Industrial strength packages such as Tensorflow have given us the same building blocks that Google uses to write deep learning applications for embedded/mobile devices to scalable clusters in the cloud and stochastic optimizers that make efficient applications possible.

Environment and tools

scikit-learn

keras

numpy

pandas

matplotlib

Results

After training, a separate test set was used to evaluate the accuracy of the CNN classifier. The trained model achieved an accuracy of 93%, which is substantially better than the baseline accuracy.AI-based Pneumonia detector might not be a marketable,/saleable product yet, but it makes me excited to see how easy it is to get started with. With even more open data we at Let’s Nurture are optimistic that we can achieve 100% accurate product.

Why choose Let’s Nurture for AI products?

The decision between joining a care home or hiring a self-employed home carer can be a difficult one. You first need to know what options are available and then decide what level of support is most appropriate.  

Nothing is more certain than death and taxes. What Benjamin Franklin missed from his famous quote is a third certainty: ageing. A word we culturally resist. Why? Ageing isn’t a bad thing. The twilight years can bring a sense of calm from the relentless rush of modern living. In reality, we don’t resist ageing - we resist the idea of not living on our own terms.

Living independently is not always an option the older and more frail we get. By knowing what care options are available, you can decide how to transition to assisted living as you age. 

Assisted living sounds like a fast track to a care home. And for some, residential care will be the obvious and only answer. Care homes provide accommodation, medical and personal care for anyone who needs support during the day and overnight. Services, facilities and prices will vary across location and providers. It’s an expensive option but one which provides a full package of medical, social and personal care provision. 

Before you sign that care home contract, have you considered home care?

Home care’s main benefit is obvious: you remain in your own home. If needed, physical alterations can be made to improve the safety of your home. Rails, mobility aids, gadgets and technology all exist to enhance our environment. It’s also beneficial to our mental health to live in the familiarity and safety of our own homes. 

Jeanette was 84 when her forgetfulness started to become a problem. She was physically fit, but a diagnosis of dementia meant it was becoming unsafe to remain home alone. Her children worried. A care home was discussed but the idea was frightening to Jeanette. She had friends nearby, she worried about loneliness. What was her solution? Home care. 

Home carers are personal assistants, or nurses, who help you at home to meet your care needs. Services vary depending on need, but range from cleaning the house and running errands, to medical assistance and personal hygiene. For many, the company of a familiar carer is reassuring and makes them feel secure living independently at home.

The decision between a nursing home, care home, residential home, assisted-living facility or a home carer may be decided for you by a medical or monetary need. For Jeanette, she felt she still had a choice. A care home might be suitable in the future, but for now, hiring a self-employed hourly carer through Curam gave her many benefits: 

Home carers are flexible – giving you control

Relying on others can leave you feeling you have little control or choice. A home carer can reinstate that feeling. With Curam, you decide the time and type of care you need. Medical care, housekeeping or simply a companion can be provided flexibly, and on your own terms, through home care. 

Home care is less expensive

Full-time residential care is expensive because it needs to be. Tally up accommodation, food, medical and care support and the bill can be extensive. If you don’t have complex medical care needs, home care can provide all you need at a fraction of the cost. With Curam you only pay for the care you receive from your chosen carer. There are no extra costs, contracts, or fees. 

Home care improves mental health

Familiar surroundings boost our wellbeing. We take comfort from ornaments, photos, and possessions which speak to us of our happiest moments. We can physically cope better in a known environment. Got a pet? Sadly, care homes often deny the companionship of animals. By contrast, a home carer can help you navigate hazards at home, assist with daily living tasks, and even walk the dog. 

Home care is tailored to your needs 

Home care is like a package holiday - you can add on the extras as you need them. That makes it a cost-effective option. Your needs may be met by hiring a carer to perform domestic chores. As time progresses, you can add on help with medication, or washing, bathing, dressing. It’s your choice to increase or reduce care services as and when you need them. 

Home care can be 24-hours

Overnight carers support you when others can’t. Their presence gives you the security to sleep better, knowing there’s help available from dawn til dusk. Managing complex medical needs, toileting, rehabilitation or simply safety are some of the reasons people choose overnight home carers. Rehabilitation at home can speed recovery times and eliminate the need for short-term nursing home care. 

Home carers allow you to socialize

We are all social creatures in some way and isolation is detrimental to our wellbeing. Our happiness is often based on the connection we have with friends, family, and social events. Driving to appointments, visiting friends and family, attending social clubs, or keeping up with technology like Skype and Zoom can all be achieved with the help of a home carer. Home carers are themselves an answer to loneliness. Curam carers have personal profiles to give clients an insight into them as individuals. You chose the carer who is right for you - a natural companion, someone to rely on and trust. 

Home carers can provide domestic help

There are countless benign daily stresses that come with living independently. Meals to prepare, dishes to wash, shopping to buy, clothes to launder, admin to sort – the list is long. A home carer can alleviate the burden of these essential tasks, so you can pursue your own interests while still living a healthy life at home. 

Home carers can provide respite care

The line between family and carer is blurred. Loved ones often assume the role of carer, supporting, and assisting at the times it’s needed most. It can be tiring, strain relationships, and be physically demanding. The family needs a break from the routine of care. In these moments, a respite home carer can step in and assume their role for a time. With an opportunity to recover, our loved ones can return to their care responsibilities rested and refreshed. 

According to recent google reports, 114 countries have reported that 1,18,000 have contracted Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, known as SARS-CoV2. Nearly 4,300 people have died.

Introduction

Where does the world catch an invisible threat? Though global shared services organizations have been pursuing cyber security for a long time and have taken measures to defend themselves from digital virus attacks, the current situation is an unforeseen global health crisis, caused by a type of influenza virus.Just a few weeks into the coronavirus-instigated health epidemic, people and companies across China were affected as a result of fears the pandemic is spreading rapidly. Governments have imposed closures, the parks, bus stations and airports are deserted and it is no longer a luxury to operate from home, but a necessity.

Pandemic risk management for business

A pandemic is an infectious disease that spreads quickly, and may pose a global threat. Pandemics will bring about social chaos and economic chaos. By upsetting the supply chain, and causing high absenteeism, they can seriously interrupt business operations. This can hinder your ability to provide your clients with products and services.Managing the risks faced by a pandemic is crucial to the survival of businesses. A business continuity plan will help you handle the impacts of a pandemic and satisfy your employee legal responsibilities to ensure its protection.Your business continuity plan will outline the risk management approach and an overview of the financial effect of your company. It will explain how the company plans to respond to an accident, outline a response plan and identify staff management and communication policies and procedures.This guide outlines how the risk associated with a pandemic can be handled by your company.

COVID-19 and pandemic planning: How companies should respond

Apply a people-first mindset : In a pandemic an organization’s very first priority would be the health and security of its employees. Employees can not concentrate on work-related tasks while their well-being and that of their families is at risk. Consequently, at the outset of a pandemic crisis, the crucial problem companies must answer is whether their workers are healthy, followed by whether they are available for critical functions. It’s important for businesses to be able to track the situation, have a healthy workplace and provide the help they need to their employees.

Plan for geographical segmentation of functions and activities : Through a pandemic planning viewpoint, organizations will pay greater attention to the regional distribution of these vital operations and roles, and how they can be segmented into alternate locations and sites for job transition. As proactive risk management and as much as practicable, businesses will try to diversify supplier base, clients, and third-party service providers across geographies to prevent single points of failure and increased exposure due to market outages and geopolitical developments.

Assess reliance on third parties : Organizations today have expanded interconnections with third parties, such as outsourced distributors, cloud service providers, data processors, aggregators, payment processors, and product and service distribution suppliers. Particularly vulnerable to pandemic events are certain third parties. Organizations need to have a comprehensive understanding of their critical third, fourth and fifth parties and their contingency systems, and have alternative plans, such as insource strategies or substitutability, if the ability of key third parties to provide services is compromised.

Engage with customers : As found during natural disasters, consumers are usually more empathetic to decline or discontinue some goods and services during disturbances outside the control of a business that include concerns regarding life safety than they are to those viewed as preventable (e.g. network failures). We do expect accountability, however, and timely updates.

Develop a robust communication strategy (including social media) : Good communications during any crisis are critical to preserving consumer trust, restoring morale and trust among workers, and sustaining market stability. Although organizations have a communications plan and defined contact points to communicate with internal and external stakeholders, the messaging is often incoherent and inopportune. Consistent messaging is important for businesses which have both retail and corporate customers. All outlets have to integrate (e.g. social media, customer contact centres, releases of public relations).

Few steps for the Leaders while Outsourcing

Communicate with each and every employee to raise the awareness, enforce policies (e.g., travel restrictions) and familiarize them with available tools and resources

If pandemic planning considerations have not been incorporated into existing business continuity and disaster recovery strategies or updated, begin rapid planning or refresh of pandemic strategies and actions

Perform an immediate assessment of processes and functions with high manual intervention and critical third-party dependencies, especially in high vulnerability and impact locations, to understand key risks, including any single points of failure

Review crisis communication plan and designate single points of contact to facilitate seamless engagement with local, national and global authorities, and other key internal and external stakeholders

Identify potential policy exceptions and institute a crisis management exception approval process to manage such exceptions on an accelerated basis in each jurisdiction

It is essential for a company to evaluate operations and knowledge flow in advance of outsourcing by creating a comprehensive product life cycle, “cradle to cradle” value stream maps with cross-functional team members, and to identify its current state and future core competencies.

Comprehensive process breakdowns can bring to light activities that are vital to consumer value formation, but are either underperforming or considered to be the company’s non-core competencies.

The long-term advantage of choosing a first-rate supplier partner is that it will grow over time, as will the efficiency of the expanded enterprise of an organisation.

A study done by FlexJobs and Global Workplace Analytics found that there has been a significant upward pattern in the number of individuals working remotely in the U.S. In the range of one year, from 2016 to 2017, remote work became 7.9%. In the course of the most recent five years, it became 44% and over the past 10 years, it became 91%. Between 2005 to 2017, there was a 159% expansion in remote work. In 2015, 3.9 million U.S. laborers were working remotely. Today that number is at 4.7 million, or 3.4% of the population.During the ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic situation, more and more employees are being forced to work from home. But what does work from home productivity statistics say about whether it’s a good idea? There are some obvious benefits to working from home. You won’t have to put up with daily traffic jams, spend more time with your family. But the real question, and the one burning in the minds of employers considering it for their employees, is simple: does working from home increase productivity?

Remote work growth trends

In an exceptionally competitive economy, working more intelligent frequently implies utilizing the benefits of a remote workforce. Working from home once had that reputation for encouraging employees to be unfocused. Truth to be told, it’s totally opposite: Research demonstrates that working from home can support specialist profitability & boost worker productivity.

Remote work is good for business Remote work can allow the employee to minimize distractions and increase the time they focused on the project. It stands to reason that companies benefit from these work from home employees by projects gets completed faster with less mistakes.Among execution based remote work insights, 85% of organizations confirm that productivity has increased in their business in view of more flexibility. Moreover, 90% of representatives state that allowing for more flexible work arrangements and schedules would expand worker assurance, while 77% say permitting employees to work remotely may prompt lower working expenses.

Remote work enhances productivity One of the other business advantages of remote work is that it enhances worker productivity, accordingly improving business results. Research has reliably demonstrated that workers are increasingly more productive when they have fewer distractions so they can concentrate more time on driving the business forward. Companies that have embraced workplace adaptability are able to drive greater employee engagement, productivity, and maintenance.

Remote Work Increases Job Satisfaction In addition to directly boosting productivity and morale, remote work is that it upgrades specialist profitability, accordingly improving business results. remote work is the trend among workers who are expecting greater purpose and want satisfaction in their careers. In a recent poll of millennial workers, 57 percent stated that their most important priority was to find a job that was enjoyable and meaningful to them personally. 80% of remote workers described their typical stress level during the work from home as either “not stressed” or only “moderately stressed.”

In certain areas, remote work is more prevalent Remote work was found to be more common in cities with high-income levels. Remote work positions tend to be knowledge work that pays higher salaries, such as software engineering and accounting. It also found that locations with small remote populations generally have industries with physical work constraints, such as agriculture and manufacturing.

Remote Productivity Tips for Work from Home

Remote workforce can positively impact your business. There are various benefits of remote workers such as they increase savings, wellness, productivity,it is easier to access top talent. Here are a few tips for resources to help you work from home during the COVID-19 crisis.

Implement a Work Schedule When working from home, you’ll have a more fluid structure to your day than if you were positioned in a conventional office setting. You’ll have the option to set your own schedule; in fact, you’ll basically need to Figure out a routine and Plan out your schedule accordingly.Working from home presents an alternate arrangement of difficulties than working in an office. Interruptions appear to be all over, and the lack of socializing with colleagues can make some people restless. It helps to set up a daily schedule — and significantly, stick to it. Set aside specific hours to answer emails, make telephone calls, have lunch and write reports. The next thing you know, your at-home workday will be finished.This schedule will be flexible, normally, should an unexpected commitment come up. Be that as it may, adhering to a timetable fit to your particular needs and qualities will assist you to be more productive and stay on top of your deadlines & asset utilization.

Maintain Interdepartmental and Client Communication Distance from the working environment often translates into the distance from work environment esteems and community. It’s too easy to become isolated and feel like only you’re in your work when you’re out of an office domain.Keep up an association with the workplace by deciding to make calls rather than sending emails, and stay in touch with your department members, colleagues and seniors via video conferencing.

Define work-life boundaries As stated above, it’s anything but difficult to lose all sense of direction in your work when you work from home and run the risk of burning yourself out. To sidestep this possibility, it’s essential to isolate work from play.When you’re at home, Rope off your space aside a corner of your home to be your workspace. This will help set clear boundaries between work mode and home mode and Allocate your time that when you complete your day, you need to truly leave work behind. In the event that you don’t have clear boundaries it’s easy to become overwhelmed from both sides. Saying yes to each errand since you’re at home and consenting to each work task since you aren’t sure when your workday closes is a certain formula for stress and dissatisfaction. Permit yourself to reflect on what’s on your plate at home and at work, and negotiate with your partner, family, and co-workers when you feel overstretched.

Set up Priorities Without the system of a traditional office, it’s much difficult to prioritize tasks and compose the work process. For that you should develop a self- discipline By making to-do lists and checklists and so on to prioritize tasks. Avoid distractions, When you are in the work hours. Without scheduled meetings, breaks, and discussions with colleagues, telecommuting presents fewer distractions than working from an office.

Self-care practices Last, however absolutely not least, it is of prime significance to deal with yourself when you telecommute and to remain on top of your vitality levels. To be sure, as indicated by an examination by Softchoice, remote workers will, in general, take fewer days off, or work clean through sickness.Regular exercise is useful to everybody, not just remote workers. But remote workers can squeeze in exercise more effectively than office workers. At the point when you need a break, spare a moment to do a few stretches, roll out a yoga mat or climb on your stationary bicycle for fifteen minutes.

As the coronavirus continues to spread, every organization should encourage employees to work from home. Working from home can initially be a bit of a challenge. But when there’s a contagious illness going around, staying away from the people around & crowded offices greatly reduces the COVID-19 transmission. Let’s Nurture has a wide range of IT solutions to meet your business requirements and adapts remote services in this situation. If you are a company looking for the same, we are right here to guide you through your prospects. Please feel free to request a quote . Also, you can send us an email at [email protected]

With an estimated 55% of adults looking to own a smart speaker by the time 2022 hits, it is easy to see why voice-activated technology has become a disruptive force in the business to the consumer communications field. With more than 20% of all searches being voice-led and 50% of consumers using voice-activated tech on a daily basis, businesses are getting excited about the influence and impact it has on marketing strategies. Let’s take a look at what voice-activated tech is, how it is impacting consumers, and how marketers are utilizing it.

What Is Voice-activated Tech, What Does it Need to Work & How Many Types Are There?

Voice-activated tech, as the name suggests, is any piece of technology that can be activated and used with only a human operator’s voice as opposed to the need for buttons and dials. More commonly known today as Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), voice-activated tech has been integrated into devices such as personal computers and mobile phones, and even in military applications such as F-16 fighter Jets. ASR software works by capturing a user’s voice through a microphone and translating it through a sound card into commands a computer can recognize and follow like “call father” and “open the web, search Lego toys” to name a few. There are several types of ASR, each with a distinctive and identifying feature of how it operates. Some ASR software requires “training” or rather, the user to read a passage so that their unique voice can be recognized and is called a Speaker Dependent System. Inversely, A Speaker Independent System is able to recognize multiple speakers without the need for any initial attunement. Furthermore, a Discrete Speech Recognition system requires users to pause between each word, while a Continuous Speech Recognition System allows for a more natural speed. Finally, a Natural Language ASR is able to understand and accurately respond to questions asked of it.

How Voice-activated Tech Impacts Consumers & How Marketers Are Using It?

Voice-activated tech is impacting both consumers and markets and here is how.Consumers

Consumers are using it to make informed buying decisions.

Add items to their shopping carts.

Compare product pricing.

Place one-time orders.

Reorder products that are out of stock.

Find business phone numbers to call.

Enjoy daily news briefings.

Get walkthroughs of recipes.

Enjoy puzzles and games (Skill Apps).

MarketersContent marketers are emphasizing on short-form content offerings, concise answers, and quick feature-rich snippets.

Marketers are aiming to get featured snippets on Google to hit position zero in the voice-search.

Marketers are integrating and delivering voice-enabled chatbots to help deliver relevant and helpful content that is in relation to the spoken search.

Skill apps are being developed to engage consumers in other relevant ways.

What the Future Marketing Space Will Look Like with Voice-activated Tech?

With 24% of internet users preferring to use a voice-activated, personal assistant over a traditional website to interact with their favourite companies, it is easy to see why 43% of companies are investing in this technology for marketing purposes. While some brands have got an early start into space, numerous others are jumping in this year as the future marketing space is beginning to heat up. Here is what it will look like going into 2020.

Digital voice-activated assistants are being used to shop online: While this has been spoken about for many years as a trend that will slowly grow as consumers become more acquainted with voice-activated devices, we are now actually seeing it happen. Consumers may not be placing as many orders as what was predicted, but they are certainly using them to make informed buying decisions, compare the prices on products, or even add items to their shopping carts. And the big-name brands are catching onto this voice-based commerce experience and using it to personalize their marketing strategies. Brands like Johnnie Walker, Domino’s and Nestle are integrating voice technology into their current systems in order to provide a better, quicker, and more personalized shopping experience. While voice is only valued at $2 bn, it is expected to skyrocket to $40 bn by 2022.

Big enterprising companies are going to fully integrate digital assistants for internal use: Large business to business (B2B) brands like Salesforce, which is a cloud-based software company, is jumping into the digital assistant conversation by launching their own extensions of the voice-platform. With Salesforce, they have launched Einstein Voice which is an extension of their Einstein platform, which handles the data, infrastructure, modelling and prep work needed to embed and scale predictive models into Salesforce specific applications. These applications include building AI-powered apps (customized) that utilize the power of image recognition and natural language processing, and real-time analytics using customized dashboards. Beyond this, Salesforce has also developed Einstein Bots which allows their customers to build their own voice-activated assistant with customized branding.

How Is This Tech Integrated into Future Marketing?

Content marketers will need to create short-form content products that provide quick and crisp answers to users through voice search. On the SEO side, marketers will need to have the information appear as featured snippets on Google, and there will be a demand for traditional SERP results. To have these work well, marketers will need to understand spoken word search behaviours and the informational needs of their users.

Why Marketers Are & Should Continue to Embrace Voice-activated Tech?

Marketers can tap into some major benefits from voice-driven strategies that centre around outshining the competition, converting customers, and increasing one’s search engine optimization. Voice-activated tech brings in new content-consumer interactions that change how customers interact with brands, for the better.

Reap the benefits of increasing sales opportunities: Consumers using voice-activated tech are far more likely to be open to receiving promotions and deals, which means increased sales opportunities for businesses. According to the research, 52% of consumers want to actually hear about promotions and deals available to them and 42% want personalized information that pertains to upcoming events they are interested in. With the right voice-activated strategy, businesses can reap major benefits in the sales department.

Increase inbound traffic via business phone calls from customers. When a consumer voice-searches up a business, they are far more likely just looking for the phone number of that business. It is easier to voice-search a business and say, “call” then it is to type in the business name, find the phone number, type it into your phone, and dial. According to recent statistics, 28% of people who search up a business will end up calling them. This converts into 10-15X the revenue than web leads and it converts customers 30% faster3.

Improve your brand’s search engine optimization. When using voice-activated search terms, the user can speak more complex phrases and the result will still be efficient and quick. When compared to typing in complex product names or key phrases, voice search is a lot more accurate. This improves a brand’s search engine efficiency as voice-activated tech productively enhances how accurately a specific term comes up.

Stand out from your competition. With a traditional text-based search through the Google search engine, the consumer sees up to 10-15 listings, some of which are ads, and some of which are actually branded listings. Despite ranking on the first page, whether you are in the first-place position or not, your company is competing against every single other listing on page one to three (most consumers don’t click past three). This means that you are not guaranteed a conversion. With voice search, only one result can be pulled up – this is position zero and if you can get into this position, you are going to dominate the spoken search term. This gives you a massive leg up on your competition and makes you stand out, regardless of which voice-activated device is used.

Voice-activated Technology & Let’s Nurture

As voice-activated technology continues to move into the spotlight like the way to go, it is key that all types of organizations look to integrate it into their marketing mix. Here at Let’s Nurture, we have expertise in developing and creating custom voice-based skills development and voice-enabled applications that integrate with both the existing web and mobile devices for end-consumer solutions. We utilize SDKs, and APIs to build customized and personalized

voice-assistant development for enterprises who want to get into the voice-activated tech market. For further queries about how we can help you,

contact us or write to us at [email protected]

As technology advances, the industry of SEO will change. Voice search and automation are some of the biggest ways that this can affect traditional SEO as you know it. While voice search has been around for nearly a decade, in recent years voice search and automation have taken off thanks to the inclusion of devices like Alexa and Google Home. This technology offers convenience to the user, but it also offers a wide variety of information that you can use for your marketing campaigns. Here are the top ways that voice search can impact SEO

You can Better Target Your Audience: What’s great about AI is that it can process a mass amount of information, quickly providing relevant and better feedback. This is valuable information that allows you to better target who your audience really is. Knowing your target audience is crucial because this helps you to create content and marketing campaigns that will be more likely to reach them. Businesses are starting to use AI to create and interact with personas, allowing them to develop more effective marketing campaigns.

Understanding Semantics: Through traditional text searches, if someone was looking for a specific type of restaurant they would type “Best Italian restaurants in (location)”. But people use voice search much differently. When using voice search, they would simply ask “Is there an Italian restaurant near me?” What does that mean from a marketing standpoint? That you need to be more conversational in your content to better optimize it for voice search. The fact is that people will search for things using different phrases depending on whether they are voice searching or text searching. By optimizing your content, you will get more attention.

Takes Away “Black Hat” SEO Techniques: In the past, people would use so-called “black hat” techniques like keyword stuffing to attract people to their website. While there is a line before search engines penalize this type of technique, there are plenty of sites that manage to get away with it. The more advanced automation becomes, the less likely techniques like this are actually going to work. This will get rid of some of the more frowned upon practices that were once used and help make everyone more equal in the search engine world.

Increases the Importance of Mobile: By now, you should know that optimizing your site for mobile devices is important. If not, it’s about to become even more important thanks to voice searches. However, it’s getting to a point where you will want to really focus on optimizing your website for mobile users since this is where a lot of voice search is used. Ensuring that you have a highly responsive mobile site and compressing your images, this is a great first step to optimizing your mobile website.

Importance of Focusing on Local Search: When you have a brick and mortar store, your primary goal is to get people to come into your store. That means that you need to be able to focus your SEO tactics on bringing voice search people to your physical location. Voice search makes it even more important to focus on local search techniques, such as saying things like “near me” or “nearby”. Doing this will improve your chances of being ranked higher on voice search results.

Use Automation to Optimize Voice Search: As previously mentioned, automation makes it easier to compile and analyze data. One of the best things that you can do with this data is to use it to optimize your site for voice search. Your content, images, and even the layout of your website as well as marketing materials must be optimized for voice search if you are going to get the attention you want.

Importance of Featured Snippets: Blocked content, meaning content that utilizes H-tags, lists, or bullet points, are considered “better readable” for search engines. If the search engines can better read your content, you will perform better on search results. Voice searches make this even more important. Featured snippets are something that you need to take the time to create to optimize voice searches. This is usually a piece of content under 29 words that concisely summarize your content. This is what will pop up initially when people ask a specific question.

Longer Queries: In the past, you would want to use the shortest keywords possible to attract attention. You would typically only use a few words as your keyword and this would be enough to rank higher on search engines. However, voice search changes that. These queries may be as long as 10 words or more. This goes back to the importance of semantics. Using longer, more natural keywords will give you a more effective approach.

More Questions, Fewer Keywords: With traditional SEO, your focus would be on short keywords like “Italian restaurant” since that’s what the user would type in. Now that you have voice search, you need to optimize your content to answer specific questions like “Where are there Italian restaurants near me?” You must use your keywords and pose them in a question to rank higher on these search engines now that voice chat is becoming more popular than ever.

Offer a More Concise Answer: When people are sitting at home and have a specific question that they are asking their devices, they want a quick but concise answer. For example, someone asks, “What’s January’s birthstone?” They don’t want to hear some long statement; they want to hear “January’s birthstone is garnet.” Placing the answer to a specific question at the beginning of your content will make it easier for the voice search to answer the question.

Our healthcare system is complex, making it resistant to large-scale sweeping changes. However, the advancement of digital systems is making a major impact on how we view our health, how our medical records are managed, and how we receive education in health matters. Wearable devices are connecting us to our health in personal ways, telemedicine is bringing healthcare to us, and more female leaders in the industry are educating the sector on female-specific issues. Here is how these will potentially impact the healthcare system in 2020.

Tech in Prenatal Care-Empowering rural women with a mobile first avenue for information

In the era of wireless technology, where there are more mobile phones than people, mobile applications play an important role for rural women to improve their maternal health. Technology is adjusting the way wherein health care is delivered. According to George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, nowadays, technology could take some portion of the expense and burden of the prenatal visits becomes less.

In rural areas, health diagnosis application is helpful models for conveying wellbeing of a mother as well as baby, information related to health for each phase of pregnancy, and how they will take care of themselves as well as prenatal. Medical clinics which have latest technologies utilize fewer suppliers for bigger areas contrasted with traditional medical clinics in resource-constrained settings, which is particularly helpful in zones with deficiencies of human services suppliers and a wide geological appropriation of patients.