Researchers in a wide range of fields have focused their efforts on COVID-19, and U of T’s Computer Science faculty and students are no exception. Professors Michael Brudno and Eyal de Lara are working on projects that bring computer science innovations into clinical care settings and homes to improve the health and safety of patients and health-care workers.
Michael Brudno
How do you maintain physical distancing for those awaiting care at a hospital’s emergency department? Professor and Associate Chair, Research Michael Brudno and colleagues at SickKids are developing a virtual waiting room built on software from Hero AI, a health-care AI technology company founded by Devin Singh, a pediatric emergency physician at SickKids and U of T Computer Science MSc candidate.
After arrival at a hospital or outpatient clinic, patients could await triage and care from a location at or near the health-care facility that allows them to maintain proper physical distancing, such as their car, a hospital atrium, or a nearby facility. The patient could then be summoned on their mobile phone when it’s time to be seen.
The same technology could also facilitate a pathway to virtual care. Following an initial nursing triage assessment, some patients could connect using the platform with a doctor employed by the hospital. With this solution, health-care facilities could conserve scarce personal protective equipment (PPE) while also easing strains on staffing by permitting doctors who might be self-isolating or under quarantine to continue providing care remotely.
“We have made more progress on virtual care in the past few weeks than in the past few years," says Brudno.
Eyal de Lara
Professor Eyal de Lara and collaborators at UHN and Sunnybrook are looking to provide a solution to some of the uncertainty that comes with becoming sick with COVID-19. People with mild symptoms are often advised to manage their illness in self-isolation at home. However, it can be unclear at what point those sick with COVID-19 at home should seek hospital-based care.
If COVID-19 patients recovering at home seek care when it’s not needed, they could be using up hospital resources that might be better used to serve other patients. However, if they delay seeking care as their condition worsens, they could be at increased risk for complications and death.
To address this uncertainty, de Lara and his collaborators will use real-time remote home-based mobile monitoring to determine which patients sent to isolate at home should be brought into a hospital, while providing reassurance to the majority of patients to avoid them having to come to a hospital. Over time, the data gathered through this monitoring could be used to develop machine learning algorithms that automatically detect deteriorations, allowing for swift hospitalization when necessary.
The monitoring would involve the use of smartphones and wearable devices such as smart watches to gather objective markers such as oxygen saturation, respiratory rate, and heart rate, which together can paint a clearer picture of a person’s condition than symptoms alone. This information will be displayed in a dashboard visible to clinicians, enabling them to contact people whose condition might require additional care.
Other COVID-19 research proposals from Computer Science faculty include:
Professor Alán Aspuru-Guzik: MyTrace.ca/ MaTrace.ca: A Private Mobile Contact Tracing Application
Professor Gerald Penn: Epidemiological Surveillance: A Comprehensive Approach through Natural Language Processing Technology
Associate Professor Frank Rudzicz: The COVID Black Box: Safe monitoring of COVID-19 ICU beds, assessment centres, and surgeries
Assistant Professor Joseph Jay Williams: Leveraging Technology for Behavior Change for Social Connection, Well-Being & Productivity: Enhancing & Personalizing Technology by Using Randomized Micro-Experiments
Assistant Professor Ishtiaque Ahmed: An accessible community-based computer-supported healthcare system for marginalized communities in Ontario, Canada and in the Global South
Marsha Chechik, chair of the Department of Computer Science, remarked: “I am proud of the innovative and interdisciplinary research projects that our Computer Science faculty have proposed to address the COVID-19 pandemic. As Canada’s premier Department of Computer Science, we are well-positioned to have a transformative impact on the way our city, country, and global community confront this unprecedented challenge.”