Problematic

As of 26 March 2020, the number of confirmed cases of patients with IDOC-19 was 462,648 worldwide.

As of 26 March 2020, the number of confirmed cases of patients with IDOC-19 was 462,648 worldwide [1]. The stability of health systems in many countries has been affected by the increasing need for Intensive Care Units (ICUs), especially the availability of mechanical ventilation devices for the care of patients with the most severe symptoms of the disease [2].

Due to the high rate of infection of the virus, the models developed for the estimation and projection of hospital resources show an imminent overcoming of the attention capacities of the health services in intensive care, which on average happens 30 days after the beginning of the epidemic, depending on the installed capacities of each country [3]-[5]. Similarly, it is concluded that there is no timely diagnosis of those critical patients due to the lack of tools for remote monitoring.

The increase in the number of patients in hospitals is one of the variables that has generated a high incidence of mortality among those suffering from SARS-V2. This generates a possible spread of the virus within the same facilities because many developing countries do not have the sanitary conditions to isolate the virus within their own physical facilities. For this reason, the United States has opted for continuous monitoring, which allows for the total isolation of the patient [6]. However, this still requires a tool that physicians can use to monitor their patients in a controlled manner.

In South Korea, for example, an application has been developed to monitor the symptoms of potential COVID-19 patients [7]. However, there are few applications that can effectively monitor the patient's physiological variables and generate a diagnosis with greater performance.

Mobile applications are easily accessible and scalable, since most of the population has a Smartphone [8]. This has allowed many disruptive solutions, especially in the eHealth sector, to be based on wearable devices for the continuous monitoring of patients over long distances, such as smart bands or watches or even mobile phones. For example, for obstructive sleep-disrupting events in some patients [9].

Mechanical ventilators are an indispensable element in the treatment of the disease. Given the experiences of countries such as Italy, Spain and recently the United States, a mechanical ventilator is often the only chance of survival for patients with severe symptoms and critical affects on the respiratory system (dyspnea and respiratory failure) [10].

The emergency has caused the demand for ventilators to increase and the processes of production and acquisition of this equipment to become a priority. Many countries have implemented strategies for the production of alternative prototypes of mechanical ventilation, with the support of universities and the private sector. Such strategies help to cope with the high investments needed by hospitals and the increasingly difficult conditions for importing and exporting this type of equipment. [11]

References

[1] https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports

[2] F. Jiang, L. Deng, L. Zhang, Y. Cai, C. W. Cheung, and Z. Xia, “Review of the Clinical Characteristics of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19),” J. Gen. Intern. Med., Mar. 2020.

[3] R. Li, C. Rivers, Q. Tan, M. B. Murray, E. Toner, and M. Lipsitch, “The demand for inpatient and ICU beds for COVID-19 in the US: lessons from Chinese cities,” medRxiv, p. 2020.03.09.20033241, Mar. 2020.

[4] T. Zhang et al., “A model to estimate bed demand for COVID-19 related hospitalization,” medRxiv, p. 2020.03.24.20042762, Mar. 2020.

[5] Y. M. Arabi, S. Murthy, and S. Webb, “COVID-19: a novel coronavirus and a novel challenge for critical care,” Intensive Care Med., 2020.

[6] Burke, R.M., 2020. Active monitoring of persons exposed to patients with confirmed COVID-19— United States, January–February 2020. MMWR. Morbidity and mortality weekly report, 69.

[7] Lim, J., Jeon, S., Shin, H.Y., Kim, M.J., Seong, Y.M., Lee, W.J., Choe, K.W., Kang, Y.M., Lee, B. and Park, S.J., 2020. Case of the index patient who caused tertiary transmission of Coronavirus disease 2019 in Korea: the application of lopinavir/ritonavir for the treatment of COVID-19 pneumonia monitored by quantitative RT-PCR. Journal of Korean Medical Science, 35(6).

[8] Poushter, J., 2016. Smartphone ownership and internet usage continues to climb in emerging economies. Pew Research Center, 22, pp.1-44.

[9] Chen, Z., Lin, M., Chen, F., Lane, N.D., Cardone, G., Wang, R., Li, T., Chen, Y., Choudhury, T. and Campbell, A.T., 2013, May. Unobtrusive sleep monitoring using smartphones. In 2013 7th International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare and Workshops (pp. 145-152). IEEE.

[10]¿J. Oke and C. Heneghan, “Global Covid-19 Case Fatality Rates,” CEBM The Centre for EvidenceBased Medicine develops, promotes and disseminates better evidence for healthcare., 2020. [Online]. Available: https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/global-covid-19-case-fatality-rates/.

[11] D. E. Sanger, M. Haberman, and Z. Kanno-Youngs, “Trump Administration Pulls Back From $1 Billion Coronavirus Ventilator Deal - The New York Times,” The New York Times, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/us/politics/coronavirus-ventilators-trump.html? action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article. [Accessed: 27-Mar-2020].