EMEA News

The scheme aims to improve access to health data for research and planning.

As the number of lives touched by COVID-19 is continuously mounting, so are the efforts of IT departments to counter the rising pressure on hospitals. The recent HIMSS Webinar, 'Italy and Germany facing COVID-19', hosted by Charles Alessi, Chief Clinical Officer, HIMSS, had two CIOs from private hospital chains in Italy and Germany, respectively, share their lessons learned from the coronavirus outbreak. WHY IT MATTERS Italy, in particular, has had to deal with a surge of infected patients and a shortage of ICU beds ahead of other Western countries. For almost five weeks Elena Sini, Group CIO, GVM Care & Research, Italy, has been working tirelessly to stay ahead of the virus. She recommends the strict segregation of COVID-19 positive and negative patients to minimise the risk of infection. For the same reason Sini urges systems to ramp up remote working capacities to protect staff, be it in the form of telemedicine and video-conferencing capabilities for doctors and nurses or to enable IT staff work from home. Additionally, IT staff on wards receive training from those familiar with working in an ICU environment on how to behave safely and nurses in ICU units are trained to take care of some IT-related issues by themselves to protect their colleagues from IT. Sini and Henning Schneider, CIO, Asklepios Kliniken, Germany, both members of the HIMSS board, advocate ceasing all ongoing IT projects to support doctors and nurses on the wards. This has become particularly important as the ongoing hospital reorganisation in reaction to COVID-19 requires additional user rights to be set up in a fast manner, especially as hospitals increase intensive care bed capacity by cancelling elective surgeries, converting recovery rooms and building tents to house patients. Sini reports a lack of hardware due to broken supply chains and insufficient bandwidth capacities as the demand on fixed landlines bounced up to about 90% on fixed landlines and 40% on the mobile network in Italy. Measures that have been key are highlighted below: Ability to control and monitor information via dashboard/automated matrix to assess situation in real-time. Creation of an incidence plan. Deploy collaboration tools. Use of e-learning tutorials to bring newly recruited healthcare workers up to speed. Secure operation of hospital information systems, especially when extending access rights. Ramp up telemedicine capabilities. High bandwidth capacities to support telemedicine and remote working. Sini would like EHR-vendors to proactively add new capabilities to facilitate the monitoring and documentation of COVID-19 cases, while Schneider suggested that better infrastructure to enable communication between hospitals in Germany as well as a centrally organised COVID-19 reporting system on a state level would help improve coping with the pandemic. THE LARGER CONTEXT As the COVID-19 pandemic consumes more medical resources daily, there is a heightened interest of hospital CIOs from around the world to learn from those who have been dealing with the coronavirus outbreak firsthand. For this webinar alone, more than 2,500 people signed up from 68 countries to get directions for contingency planning. ON THE RECORD “The response to COVID-19 is a continuously evolving process, there is no end point and it requires adapting by the hour,” says Sini. “Collaboration tools are essential. Get ready for a significant surge in patients coming to hospitals, plan for the long haul. Although the heaviest toll is on healthcare professionals, burnout is also a concern for IT staff, so set up some psychological support for IT staff as well,” she warns. Schneider reinforces that “each IT person is a human being who is afraid like everyone else of being infected. CIOs priority must be leadership and communication: communication with their own staff and aligning it with communication throughout the entire organisation." He also praises the spirit of collaboration across the healthcare ecosystem: “The ability to work together is amazing, not only between hospitals, but also software and hardware vendors.” Alessi warns of looming cyber-attacks: ”People need to be aware of a heightened need of security at a time like this.” As a doctor, he also sees the need to balance medical resources: “The coronavirus totally consumes the medical system, to the degree that people with a host of non-communicable diseases don’t get treatment.” The full recording is available here.   

The Open Data Institute Leeds, NHS Digital and Beautiful Information have just run their first “Open Data Saves Lives” hackathon in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.  

CLEW’s platform provides predictive analytics to detect respiratory deterioration in advance.  

Henning Schneider, CIO, Asklepios Kliniken, Germany, and vice-chair board of directors at HIMSS, compares COVID-19 to recent epidemics and explains how priorities of the IT department have shifted in view of the current contagion, during the latest Talking Points webinar, organised by the HIMSS D-A-CH Community.

Professor Jörg Debatin, head of Germany's Health Innovation Hub,.addressed how telemedicine platforms, bots and IT systems help secure medical care remotely and enable efficient crisis management and accurate resource planning during the "Talking Points" webinar organised by the HIMSS D-A-CH Community.

The American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC) has made history in Lebanon as the first organisation to achieve Stage 6 of the HIMSS Electronic Medical Records Adoption Model (EMRAM) and Outpatient-EMR Adoption Model (O-EMRAM).

Scientists in Oxford have developed a faster-acting test to establish whether patients are infected with the coronavirus. A team from the University of Oxford’s Engineering Science Department and the Oscar Suzhou Centre for Advance Research (OSCAR) have been working to improve upon the current process, which can take up to two hours to produce a result and requires specialised equipment. The newly developed test produces highly accurate results in half an hour. Its sensitivity enables it to identify the virus earlier than can be achieved with the current test, and it only requires a standard heat block to work. This could be particularly beneficial in rural or more isolated areas without access to the complicated equipment needed currently as it facilitates testing in, for instance, community health centres. The test has already been trialled on 16 clinical samples in Shenzhen Luohou People’s Hospital in China and achieved a 100% diagnostic success rate. It is hoped that it will be rolled out to testing clinics within the next two weeks. The team at Oxford is now working on a fully integrated version of the test that could be deployed in airports, clinics and homes. WHY IT MATTERS The UK is currently on the upswing of COVID-19 infections epi curve. This means that the number of confirmed cases is rapidly increasing every day, jumping by 1,700 cases between 20th and 22nd March. The ability to swiftly and effectively test potential cases of COVID-19 will enable more people to be tested and strengthen measures to control the spread of the virus. It will also accelerate the treatment of patients, which could potentially diminish the virus’s more severe effects. THE LARGER PICTURE As COVID-19 sweeps the globe, there has been a huge effort to "flatten the curve" of those affected by the virus. This means trying to control the rate of infection so as not to overwhelm public services. Intensive care units (ICUs) across the country are already at capacity, with some cases of patients “spilling over” into recovery areas and taking over other areas of the hospitals. A more efficient test could ease this strain on emergency services as the infection continues to spread, potentially limiting the number of deaths. ON THE RECORD  Professor Wei Huang, one of the leading scientists of the team, says: “The beauty of this new test lies in the design of the viral detection that can specifically recognise SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) RNA and RNA fragments. The test has built-in checks to prevent false positives or negatives and the results have been highly accurate.” Professor Zhanfeng Cui, the director of OSCAR, says: “I am proud of our team that have developed a useful technology and can make a contribution in combating CoV-19, and we are very grateful to the hospital’s medical team … for their part in testing this new technology.”  

Unable to obtain the original blueprints for the valves because of medical manufacturing regulations, Cristian Fracassi and Alessandro Romaioli of Isannova reverse-engineered one, creating and testing three possible working prototypes. Although going against established protocol, the team were able to produce 100 3D-printed valves in 24 hours and at a cost of approximately $1 per unit. This is in stark contrast to the $11,000 it costs Intersurgical, the patent holder, to make the CPAP Hood System, of which the valve is a small part. The printed valves have already gone on to successfully treat patients in Brescia and another hospital has already got in contact with Fracassi and Romaioli for assistance. The team have not publicly released the designs, stating that they are working for free and believe, where possible, the valves should be produced clinically. WHY IT MATTERS L’Ospedale di Chiara in Brescia was unable to procure the valves from its regular supplier, who informed the hospital that they would not be able to make any more in time to treat the 250 patients already in their intensive care unit, as the increased demand due to the COVID-19 outbreak had cleared them out. The valves are an essential component of breathing apparatus used to treat patients suffering from coronavirus, a virus that primarily targets the lungs and air-passages. They are single-use and designed to be used for up to 8 hours at a time, meaning the number of valves needed far outnumbers the Hoods. THE LARGER PICTURE Italy has suffered over 5,476 fatalities so far (23 March) from COVID-19, surpassing China as the country with the highest death rate. The virus seems to be affecting the country worst, with a Case Fatality Rate of approximately 8.3%, over double the estimated world average. Intensive care units across the country have already been filled and the country is enduring a complete lockdown while essential services try and get the situation under control. ON THE RECORD Cristian Fracassi responded to his involvement in the project: “There were people with their lives in danger, and we acted. Period.” He added: “If we acted fast, it was only because with 3D-printing you can quickly attempt a small production that would be impossible on an industrial scale,” before clarifying that the official valves were of a higher quality. Michele Fiani, who also took part in the project, highlighted the importance of collaboration in this uncertain time: “I hope that all the people understand that we have to work together [to] stop this pandemic. All of us have to stay safe and have to use our skills to help [those] who need it”.

Up until now, the role of these olfactory genes outside the nose has been largely unknown.