IT COVID-19 News
Novel 3D 'Lung-On-A-Chip' Model to Test New COVID-19 Therapies
2021 07 May
COVID-19 is the most recent, but certainly not the only condition to affect and cause serious damage to the lung. Asthma, COPD, influenza and pneumonia, among other respiratory diseases often lead to lung failure — one of the leading causes of death globally. Researchers are in a continuous struggle to understand the mechanisms related to these severe... Read more
Will Your Mobile Phone Soon Be Able to Detect COVID-19?
2021 03 May
The NIH recently approved a 24-month grant for researchers to develop sensors that can be embedded into mobile devices which could potentially detect COVID-19 particles on their surfaces. The General Electric Research team is set to begin developing miniature sensors that can be embedded into mobile devices in order to detect COVID-19 on... Read more
Short-Term Planning for COVID-19 Made Easy
2021 16 Apr
Based on the transmission rate data, a group of researchers have developed an easy-to-use, reliable model and dashboard to predict the number of daily COVID-19 cases. You might also like: The WHO has developed a number of surge planning tools, which help to visualise care capacity needs, identify the timing and severity of the peak... Read more
COVID-19 Remote Monitoring: How Safe Is It?
2021 03 Apr
A new study from the University of Toronto presents the results of implementing a multidisciplinary, family medicine-led remote monitoring programme for outpatients with COVID-19. You might also like: A new report shows the growing adoption levels for certain categories of digital health tools and populations, and looks into the matters... Read more
COVID-19 and Telehealth
2021 27 Mar
A massive cohort study of over 36 million U.S. patients looks into how ambulatory care patterns changed considering the rise in virtual care in the first months since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. You might also like: The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated growth in the use of telemedicine but there are differences... Read more
NLP ‘Barometer’ for Analysing Local Clinical Data
2021 27 Feb
A vendor-neutral, open-source, natural language approach of EHR data is suggested by a team of U.K. researchers, to help providers plan for surges in patients, particularly in the COVID-19 context. You might also like: The WHO has developed a number of surge planning tools, which help to visualise acute and intensive care capacity... Read more
AI Helps Multilingual Patient Communication in Radiology
2021 14 Feb
A free web-based tool uses artificial intelligence to help radiologic technicians communicate with patients in various languages. You might also like : Machine Learning and COVID-19 Management The RadTranslate web app was developed at Massachusetts General Hospital’s MESH Incubator. To use the tool, a technician should... Read more
State of Mental Health: Digital Providers’ Insight
2021 12 Feb
A new research assesses the role digital providers play in the mental health support during the pandemic. You might also like: ATA & ORCHA Partner for Health App Quality Mental health had been on the radar of the World Health Organization even before COVID-19, with an estimated 1 billion people worldwide suffering... Read more
Pandemic-Driven Uptake of Virtual Care in Canada
2021 11 Feb
A team of Canadian researchers analysed the shift from office to virtual care early on in the COVID-19 pandemic and identified the degree of change in various patient populations. You might also like: Not Everyone Is Ready for Telehealth The pandemic has caused significant changes in how care is delivered, and a turn to telemedicine... Read more
Readjusting Telemonitoring System for COVID-19 Needs
2021 11 Feb
The U.S. Kaiser Permanente system reports on the efficiency of its special telemonitoring programme for COVID-19 patients. You might also like: Remote Work and Virtual Consultations: Emergency Setup The COVID-19 pandemic has boosted demand for general medicine providers and reduced it for subspecialty services. To address... Read more
ETSI: Comparing Existing Contact Tracing Systems
2021 06 Feb
A new report from ETSI analyses and compares various contact tracing applications and methods utilised to help mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic. You might also like: Automated Contact Tracing: Is It Efficient? With its report, Comparison of existing pandemic contact-tracing systems, ETSI’s Europe for Privacy-Preserving... Read more
Digital Healthcare Focus: Societal Health Perspectives
2021 01 Feb
The costs of loneliness, and telepresence as a social snack In this space I explore monthly topics, from concepts to technologies, related to the necessary steps to build Digital Healthcare Systems. For the month of February 2021, I have invited Prof. Luisa Lima to co-author a brief article on ‘The costs of loneliness and... Read more
Digital Contact Tracing: Case Study from Spain
2021 31 Jan
A new research looks into the use of digital contact tracing (DCT) technologies during the pandemic, based on a real-life controlled experiment in Spain. You might also like : Automated Contact Tracing: Is It Efficient? While several countries have deployed DCT applications, to date there is no evidence that such digital... Read more
U.K. Public Attitudes to Tracking and Immunity Passports
2021 24 Jan
The overwhelming majority of people in the UK support the use of co-location tracking technologies and introduction of immunity passports by the authorities to contain the spread of COVID-19, a new study shows (Lewandowsky et al. 2021) . You might also like: (You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party!)? COVID-19 ‘Immunity Passports’... Read more
New Initiative Seeks to Standardise COVID-19 Vaccination Records
2021 15 Jan
Leaders from healthcare and tech industry, including Mayo Clinic, Microsoft and Oracle, are joining forces in the Vaccination Credential Initiative (VCI) to establish a standard for digital vaccination records. You might also like: COVID-19 Vaccines: Need for Global Tracking System The new initiative aims to provide every... Read more
Machine Learning and COVID-19 Management
2021 14 Jan
A new systematic review (Syeda et al. 2021) analyses artificial intelligence (AI) -based methods utilised to tackle the pandemic and provides insights into different COVID-19 themes. You might also like: AI Tool Helps to Reduce COVID-19 Mortality Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, many healthcare organisations have... Read more
Four Steps to Make COVID-19 Vaccinations Efficient
2021 04 Jan
The United States, where COVID-19 cases continue to rise, is racing to vaccinate as many people as possible to curb further spread of the virus. The inoculation drive, however, poses a major IT challenge as the country's data infrastructure lacks the capacity to efficiently track COVID-19 vaccine distribution and its use (who got vaccinated,... Read more
Online Calculator for COVID-19 Mortality Risk
2020 14 Dec
A new addition to the COVID-19 Risk Tools suite by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, an online mortality calculator , assesses the risk of dying from COVID-19 in currently uninfected individuals. It has been presented in an article published in Nature Medicine (Jin et al. 2020) and is available online for interested public... Read more
COVID-19 Vaccines: Need for Global Tracking System
2020 12 Dec
As the world's first COVID-19 mass vaccination programmes are underway in the UK, the U.S. and some other countries, a new paper (Vander Stichele et al. 2020) highlights the need for global monitoring of vaccine use (who was inoculated with which vaccine product, where and when) as well as its safety and effectiveness. You might... Read more
Digitally Listening to Sound of Lungs
2020 10 Dec
Two different devices aimed at improving the quality of a uscultation, the action of listening to sounds from the body, lungs in particular, have been recently presented to the medical community. One is a lung sound recording system (LSRS) from TU Graz and the other is a digital stethoscope from John Hopkins’ James West. ... Read more