Digital service helped doctors assess dynamics of status of more than 200 thousand COVID-19 patients

Doctors of Moscow in-patient hospitals and reserve hospitals, where patients with coronavirus infection are treated, use modern technologies in their work. One of such digital assistants is the News2 service integrated with the Unified Digital Healthcare Platform (EMIAS). It is based on the international NEWS2 scale of assessing risks of patients’ deterioration.

“Moscow doctors have the most modern technical resources and digital tools that help provide medical care as quickly, effectively and efficiently as possible. The News2 digital service allows physicians to identify probable risks of clinical deterioration of patients’ status, and monitor effectiveness of therapy. It helped specialists monitor health status of over 200 thousand patients nearly four million times,” the press service of the Moscow social development complex informed.

Most often, the News2 service was used in the medical cluster in Kommunarka, in reserve hospitals of Sokolniki Exhibition and Convention Center and repurposed Moskva automobile shopping center. The service is also used in intensive care follow-up wards, that were arranged for enhanced monitoring of patients with complicated course of disease.

Thanks to the service integration with EMIAS, results of the assessment of patients’ deterioration risk are reflected in their electronic record and are available to all specialists in the health care institution from any workplace. This allows doctors of different specialties to get acquainted with both the patient current status and dynamics of indicators.

News2 and other digital assistants are only auxiliary tools that facilitate work of doctors and nurses and allow them to focus on the patient's status of health. Anyway, the final decision regarding the course of treatment and evaluation of its effectiveness is to be made by the doctor.

Using a tablet running a special program, the medical worker reads the QR code from the patient's identification bracelet or from the identification sheet and enters into the system current indications of the patient's status: heart rate, blood oxygen saturation, blood pressure, body temperature, respiratory rate. The system calculates an integral assessment — the risk group where the patient currently belongs to, highlighting it with appropriate color. If change in parameters indicates an increased risk of the patient's status deterioration, the doctor makes a decision about changing the course of treatment, prescribing additional examinations or transferring the patient to the intensive care unit.

Such solutions implementation became possible thanks to the unified digital healthcare platform developed by Moscow social development complex and the city's Information Technology Department. It helps doctors and patients use various services that save time and make research and treatment easier and more comfortable for both medical professionals and patients.