Enhancing Safety During a Pandemic Using Virtual Care Remote Monitoring Technologies and UML Modeling

Abstract

Objectives: This paper describes a methodology for gathering requirements and early design of remote monitoring technology (RMT) for enhancing patient safety during pandemics using virtual care technologies. As pandemics such as COrona VIrus Disease (COVID-19) progress there is an increasing need for effective virtual care and RMT to support patient care while they are at home. Methods: The authors describe their work in conducting literature reviews by searching PubMed.gov and the grey literature for articles, and government websites with guidelines describing the signs and symptoms of COVID-19, as well as the progression of the disease. The reviews focused on identifying gaps where RMT could be applied in novel ways and formed the basis for the subsequent modelling of use cases for applying RMT described in this paper. Results: The work was conducted in the context of a new Home of the Future laboratory which has been set up at the University of Victoria. The literature review led to the development of a number of object-oriented models for deploying RMT. This modeling is being used for a number of purposes, including for education of students in health infomatics as well as testing of new use cases for RMT with industrial collaborators and projects within the smart home of the future laboratory. Conclusions: Object-oriented modeling, based on analysis of gaps in the literature, was found to be a useful approach for describing, communicating and teaching about potential new uses of RMT.

Connecting the World of Healthcare Virtually: A Scoping Review on Virtual Care Delivery

“…As many are familiar with the 2020 global pandemic caused by coronavirus, this has led to some dramatic changes in the way people live and work [ 30 , 31 ]. Governments all around the world have mandated the closure of non-essential services, such as restaurants and entertainment venues, while essential services, such as clinical programs, pharmacies, public transportation, and grocery stores continue to remain open during the pandemic.…”

“…Governments all around the world have mandated the closure of non-essential services, such as restaurants and entertainment venues, while essential services, such as clinical programs, pharmacies, public transportation, and grocery stores continue to remain open during the pandemic. Given the risks of the pandemic, many countries also began the practice of social distancing, hence reducing the need to visit a care facility, and having virtual visits where possible became the public’s preference [ 30 , 31 ]. With an increase in virtual visits, the need to travel decreased; therefore, this is a perk in terms of environmental impacts and decreasing the carbon footprint on this planet [ 32 ].…”

“…In terms of the implications of virtual care on health informatics practice, we can expect there to be many collaborations between health informatics professionals and healthcare organizations in joint research projects on the implementation of virtual care [ 30 , 31 ]. This can include being a consultant for healthcare organizations as they implement a new virtual care technology or conducting evaluations of the post-implementation of virtual care technologies.…”

“…This can include being a consultant for healthcare organizations as they implement a new virtual care technology or conducting evaluations of the post-implementation of virtual care technologies. If evaluations produce positive outcomes (e.g., [ 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 ]), the government may also devote more funding toward future virtual care research or wide-scale implementations. This will also affect the training and education for health informatics programs.…”

“…As an example, the Health Information Science program at the University of Victoria is planning to add an elective course on virtual care to trial the popularity of this topic prior to further embedding this as part of their mandatory course structure. Contents of the course can entail the implementation process of a virtual care tool, with real-life examples or guest speakers who have the knowledge and experience of virtual care implementations [ 31 ]. Future learning experiences in work settings terms can also include opportunities to work on virtual care projects [ 31 ], which can ultimately open up new employment opportunities for students.…”