Reconfiguring health services to reduce the workload of caregivers during the COVID-19 outbreak using an open-source scalable platform for remote digital monitoring and coordination of care in hospital Command Centres

TL;DR

This paper presents an open-source digital platform that remotely monitors COVID-19 patients at home, reducing healthcare workload by automating data collection and early warning detection in hospital Command Centres.

Contribution

It introduces a scalable, open-source system for remote patient monitoring and coordination during health crises, enhancing hospital capacity and response efficiency.

Findings

Real-time remote monitoring of patients is feasible.

Automated filtering detects early warning signs effectively.

Open-source software enables widespread deployment.

Abstract

The Covid-19 outbreak threatens to saturate healthcare systems in most Western countries. We describe how digital technologies may be used to automatically and remotely monitor patients at home. Patients answer simple self-reported questionnaires and their data is transmitted, in real time, to a Command Centre in the nearest reference hospital. Patient reported data are automatically filtered by algorithms to identify those with early warning signs. Open-source code of all software components required to deploy the remote digital monitoring platform and Command Centres is available.