Tele-medicine and monitoring systems: a call for technologies to contrast the spread of Covid-19

Today, the Minister for Technological Innovation and Digitalization, the Ministry of Health, the Higher Institute for Health, WHO and an Interdisciplinary Scientific Committee launch together a new initiative “Innova per l’Italia”: a call to the world of business and research.

The three day call has the objective of finding the best available digital solutions and technologies for telemedicine, home care applications, and for the “active” monitoring of the risk of contagion. The adoption and use of these solutions and technologies will be coordinated nationally to better monitoring and contrasting the spread of Covid-19.

The systemic use of emerging technologies (data analytics, artificial intelligence) and tele-medicine (tele-consultation, tele-monitoring) has proven to be a very effective weapon to monitor and contain the coronavirus epidemic.

To respond to the need for coordination, today we are launching a call for contributions aimed at public administrations, companies and organizations that have already implemented technological solutions in these areas. We launch a call to evaluate reliable, ready to use and already available on the market technological solutions.

Once all the proposals have been collected, the Working Group, which is made up of the Ministry of Health, Higher Institute for Health, WHO and the interdisciplinary scientific committee, will assess the proposals and provide feedback to the proposer only if the proposal is judged appropriate for its characteristics and the emergency priority that expects to solve. The ministries proposing Innova per l’Italia will assist the Working Group with the technological aspects and by engaging University and Research institutions, enterprises and the productive fabric as a whole.

Objectives The objective of the call is to identify technological solutions already implemented in the following areas:

• apps and technical solutions for remote assistance of patients at home, both for diseases related to COVID-19, and for other pathologies of chronic nature. This area includes apps and chatbots for health condition self-monitoring suited for all citizens or only for certain groups (such as subjects under fiduciary isolation);
• technologies and solutions for continuous tracking, alerting and timely control of the level of people’s exposure to the risk, and consequently, of the evolution of the epidemic. This area includes data analysis tools, hardware and software technologies for health emergency management

How to present the proposal All public and private entities wishing to submit their proposal should fill in the form available on the website of the Minister for Technological Innovation and Digitization from Tuesday 24 March at 9 am to Thursday 26 March at 1 pm. Only the proposers of the solutions that satisfy the call’s specific objectives and are favourably evaluated by the scientific committee, will be contacted in due times.

Requirements for participation Services and solutions should meet the following criteria:

• The proposers should be public administrations, companies, public and private entities and research centers, associations (which can interact with associates which are able to respond to these needs), cooperatives, consortia, foundations and institutes, but not individuals or professionals.
• The proposals should be ready and available for implementation in a very short time and compatible with the emergency.
• Preferably, a dedicated “channel” - including the company’s top management or body- should be provided for the coronavirus emergency initiative, including the company’s or the entity’s top management.
• One of the two forms should be completed in all its parts, in a clear manner; all questions must be clearly and completely answered. Incomplete applications will not be accepted.

The proposed solutions should have:

• High interoperability characteristics or the possibility of integration with company / regional systems and should not be subjected to significant front-end / back-end constraints that would make implementation difficult.
• Functionality of interaction with the mobile user, ensuring a reliable definition of the position.
• High interoperability characteristics or possibility of integration with corporate / regional systems.

In particular, the proposals for remote assistance must provide effective and user friendly methods for identification, authentication and information processing and / or informed consent.

If you think you have a solution that will make a difference, please write to us. Thank you!