Korea University Medical Center has set up a smart patient monitoring system in Nonghyup Gyeongju Training Institute, a temporary isolation facility in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, to treat COVID-19 patients with mild symptoms.

To help run the isolation facility, KUMC dispatched medical workers and a medical treatment bus to the facility on Tuesday, the hospital said.

Sohn Jang-wook, a professor of the Infectious Disease Department of Korea University Anam Hospital, explains about the smart patient monitoring system, at a meeting to operate the isolation facility for new coronavirus-infected patients in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province. (Korea University Medical Center)

The medical support group stayed in two isolation facilities -- one in Samsung Electronics’ training center in Yeongdeok and the other in Gyeongju -- to sanitize buildings, check operational systems, provide treatment guidelines, educate local medical workers, and monitor patients.

They also built a smart patient monitoring system.

The smart patient monitoring system allows patients to use a mobile application to record their symptoms and health status. The data gets stored in the central database, and physicians can check the data online.

About 230 COVID-19 patients with mild symptoms staying in the isolation centers will download the application, keep records of the onset of the symptoms, the date of diagnosis, records of an underlying disease, check on the 10 kinds of symptoms, including cough, body aches, and sore throat, and send the data.

The data will be recorded in the electronic chart system on the server, and active artificial intelligence (AI)-based monitoring system informs medical staff by detecting dangerous signals in advance.

The smart patient monitoring system allows observing patients without face-to-face contact between medical workers and patients in the non-hospital care facility, protecting patients and medical staff. It can detect dangerous signals through active monitoring of patient symptoms. Also, it enhances safety against the risk of infection, managing both the clinical sites and the central system.

Sohn Jang-wook, a professor of the Infectious Disease Department of Korea University Anam Hospital, said KUMC adopted the smart patient monitoring system to protect both patients and healthcare workers. “We expect that the monitoring of the patient's conditions based on updated data in real-time will enable us to predict and prevent various problems in advance,” Sohn said.

If the system gets to be used in other treatment facilities, the authorities will be able to monitor all the confirmed cases of Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province on a watertight disease control network, he added.

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