Research

Bluetooth Technology, the Best Ally to Detect COVID-19 Cases through Smartphone Contact Tracing

"Tracers have been and are essential to manage the pandemic. Today, the tracing is done by hand and this work is slow and inaccurate. However, as we have seen, technology can be highly useful: contact tracing with smartphones and smartclocks help find out who has been in contact with an infected person, thanks to the use of

Artificial Intelligence can Improve How Chest Images Are Used in Care of COVID-19 Patients

According to a recent report by Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers, artificial intelligence (AI) should be used to expand the role of chest X-ray imaging - using computed tomography, or CT - in diagnosing and assessing coronavirus infection so that it can be more than just a means of screening for signs of COVID-19 in a patient's lungs.

Researchers Identify Healthcare Data Defects

Researchers at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) have developed a method to investigate the quality of healthcare data using a systematic approach, which is based on creating a taxonomy for data defects thorough literature review and examination of data. Using that taxonomy, the researchers developed software that automatically detects data defects effectively and efficiently.

Digital Contact Tracing for COVID-19: An Analysis of Strengths and Limitations

An article in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) analyzes the strengths and limitations of digital contact tracing for people infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) to help governments decide if and how they might adopt this technology.

Telehealth Tools Developed for Ebola Improve COVID-19 Care

Telemedicine tools developed at UVA Health to battle Ebola have huge potential in the fight against COVID-19, UVA experts report in a new scientific paper. The tools, they say, allow doctors to provide personal, high-quality care while conserving vital personal protective equipment and reducing infection risks.

Statistical Approach to COVID-19 Clinical Trials Aims to Accelerate Drug Approval Process

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have published a pair of studies in a COVID-19 special issue of the Harvard Data Science Review, freely available via open access, describing new methods for accelerating drug approvals during pandemics and for providing more accurate measures of the probabilities of success for clinical trials of vaccines and other anti-infective therapies.

Accurate Mapping of Human Travel Patterns with Global Smartphone Data

Understanding people's short- and long-distance travel patterns can inform economic development, urban planning, and responses to natural disasters, wars and conflicts, disease outbreaks like the COVID-19 pandemic, and more. A new global mapping method, developed by scientists from Boston Children's Hospital and the University of Oxford, provides global estimates of human mobility at much greater resolution than was possible before.