Dean Koh

Key use cases for TeamViewer Pilot include real time knowledge transfer and fast remote support for hospitals and medical facilities.

An interview with Prof. Chyong-Huey Lai, Vice-superintendent of Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Linkuo Branch.

Earlier this week, the Department of Health (DOH) of the Philippines launched its new COVID-19 Tracker. The revamped tracker features additional information on the epidemiology of COVID-19 in the country, COVID-19 testing, health facilities, and availability of personal protective equipment (PPEs). The public can now view data on the laboratory testing capacities of the DOH accredited laboratories including the total number of tests and unique individuals tested.  The public can now also have a snapshot of the country’s health system's capacity in responding to the pandemic based on data collected from the DOH DataCollect application. The DataCollect app gathers daily data from hospitals and stakeholders such as essential resources and supplies, availability of hospital beds, isolation rooms, ICU beds and mechanical ventilators, and human resource needs. The application will also be able to accurately calculate the projected need of PPEs, and link to our logistics offices for delivery of supplies. This will facilitate easier and faster tracking of reports between DOH offices. Under the “Mandatory Reporting of Notifiable Diseases and Health Events of Public Health Concern Act" or RA 11332, all of DOH’s partner hospitals are mandated to implement this system of data collection. DOH worked with epidemiologist Mr. Nel Jason Haw and data science consulting firm Thinking Machines in the creation of its new COVID-19 tracker. THE LARGER TREND Having a data platform or dashboard to monitor and track the development of COVID-19 cases can help public health authorities plan and intervene according to the needs of the health system(s). In the UK, the NHS is working with US tech companies Palantir, Microsoft and Amazon to develop a data platform to inform the COVID-19 response, according to a report by Healthcare IT News.  ON THE RECORD “The new COVID-19 tracker is not perfect and we hope to add more information in the succeeding days, but it is our fervent hope that this responds to the information needs and the call for transparency from our citizens,” Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said. “Right now, health facility data is only limited to around 550 reporting hospitals and infirmaries so we call on our hospitals to submit information through our DataCollect App to help us protect our healthcare workers in beating COVID-19,” the Secretary added.

The app requires no accessories or hardware other than the user’s smartphone.

The service, which is provided by Samitivej, is available free-of-charge and all-day from 8 April to 10 May 2020. 

There are currently more than 16 life treatment centers in operation in South Korea.

An interview with Professor John Beard of the ARC Centre for Excellence in Population Aging Research, University of New South Wales, Australia.

Clinical leads will be able to use the software information internally to gauge a site-wide view of their hospital to see all affected patients and their status across the hospital.

The service provided is a remote health consultation service, which means that doctors should advise patients according to their conditions and symptoms, not diagnosing or prescribing medicines.

While public hospitals aim to improve their operational efficiency and medical outcomes, private hospitals are making a digital push to enhance their value proposition.