ICU4Covid - vision, challenges, and current status
Prof. Ricardo Jardin-Gonçalves
UNINOVA

The European health services have well responded to the Covid-19 emerging crisis, especially if and where the intensive care unit (ICU) capacities were sufficient, were prepared and collectively cooperating, sharing knowledge and were able to protect from further spreading of the disease among the healthcare workforce and the patients. Today, only 47% of hospitals have the recommended coverage of intensive care specialists and they are unevenly distributed between centres and periphery. The ICU4Covid’s Cyber-Physical System for Telemedicine and Intensive Care (CPS4TIC) enables existing or new ICU structures to transform and operate as one ICU Hub with one central ICU and connected ICUs in peripheral hospitals, to ensure efficient and effective diagnosis and treatment of Covid-19 patients, while reducing the risk of infection drastically.

Hence the European health services have well responded to the Covid-19 emerging crisis, especially if and where the intensive care unit (ICU) capacities were sufficient, were prepared and collectively cooperating, sharing knowledge and were able to protect from further spreading of the disease among the healthcare workforce and the patients. ICU4Covid challenges to deliver the capacity of ICU that EU citizens deserve and reduce the risk of infection of the medical workforce involved. It creates a powerful infrastructure to diagnose and treat patients of COVID-19 outbreaks best, especially at times, when vaccination and pharmaceutical products are under development and the pandemic with induced political measures have deep impact on the society and economy.

Large scale pilots and deployment is performed in real ICU settings (ICU4Covid Hubs) located in 9 different European Regions (Austria, Germany, Greece, Portugal, Madeira Islands, Azores Islands, Latvia, Romania, Italy) involving more than 30 000 patients/year at large university hospitals as well as connected peripheral hospitals with a coverage range of approximately 85 Million citizens. Today, the installation of the ICU4Covid Hubs is ongoing with installation in verification in the ICUs of the hospitals at Germany and Madeira Islands. The installation of all other Hubs are progressing until the end of 2022.