COVID-ex 2022 Abstracts


Area 1 - COVID-ex 2019

Full Papers
Paper Nr: 1
Title:

COVID-19 Treatment Process Identification: A Case Study in Russian Hospital for Cardiology

Authors:

Liubov Elkhovskaya, Sergey Kovalchuk, Ilya Potapov and Dmitrii Ovchinnikov

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant strain on medical facilities. The race between global pandemic spread and medical practices progression produced a plethora of clinical guidelines. In Russia, more than ten official versions of such guidelines have been developed since the start of the pandemic. Thus, treatment processes have undergone several changes. Additionally, organizational schemes of patient care delivery were affected by the availability of hospital resources. In our study, we identified the characteristics of COVID-19 treatment processes at a large multidisciplinary hospital, that was adapted for treating COVID- 19 several times during disease outbreaks. For this task, we used a process mining technique. Given the peculiarities of the hospital information system, we developed an approach for analysing treatment flow. Then, we compared clinical pathways in different pandemic periods and verified compliance with the official guidelines.
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Short Papers
Paper Nr: 4
Title:

A Data Driven Investigation on the Relationship between Tests, Confirmed Cases and Positive Rate: The Case of Greece

Authors:

Nikolaos Papadakis and Dimitrios Bakirtzis

Abstract: While the pandemic of COVID-19 has proved a global challenge for humanity, it has also provided an unprecedented opportunity to study infectious diseases because of the globally coordinated effort to collect daily data and make it publicly available. As a result, it is possible to access data and try to improve on models and approaches. It is probably, so far, the largest effort to conduct testing on population at a global scale for an infectious disease. The aim of this project is to report on the relationship between the daily values of the test samples, the confirmed cases and the positive rate for COVID-19 in Greece. A discussion on the volatility of the reported metrics by media coverage is carried out, to highlight the potential pitfalls of using the confirmed cases or positive rate in isolation. For the case of Greece, a dependence in the number of tests and confirmed cases on the weekdays is identified. That dependence seemed to decrease with increasing number of tests. A comparison takes place between Greece and Austria which is a country with a similar size and also data regarding the RT-PCR tests and antigen tests are publicly available.
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Paper Nr: 2
Title:

Long COVID Diary: A User Centered Approach for the Design of a Mobile Application Supporting Long COVID Patients

Authors:

Andreas Hausberger, Barbara Tappeiner, René Baranyi and Thomas Grechenig

Abstract: A significant part of patients who have recovered from COVID-19 has been experiencing COVID-like symptoms for weeks and months after the initial disease. These patients have been called “Long COVID patients”. Currently, guidelines are being published that inform about these symptoms and may deliver a basis for medical diagnoses. In this paper, the possibility of a Long COVID patient support app is being discussed. To gain insight into the needs and requirements of patients with Long COVID, a questionnaire was conducted with 193 participants from a self help-group in Austria. The results show that Long COVID has a profound negative impact on the daily lives of people who are suffering from the disease. Also, the results show a demand for more support and indicate the role that a Long COVID symptom tracking app could play in this context. Concerning digital support, ten crucial features of a potential Long COVID support app were identified by analyzing the answers to the questionnaire. Apart from health and symptom tracking features, sharing of data with medical professionals, appointment management, and news features were considered important features to support patients suffering from Long COVID throughout their journey to get better.
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