COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for fast and efficient reorganization of hospital structures. A wide literature of official guidelines has been developed about this topic and different strategies have been adopted. Nevertheless, if the aim of the guidelines is to be efficient and responsive especially in case of emergencies, already existing ones seem to lack in these aspects, due to the impossibility to achieve direct answers to some fundamental questions. They tend to overfill the user with a lot of information organized in such a way that does not allow easy links among them, rather than rearrange the knowledge according to specific issues that the reader may raise.
The “Decision support system for Responding to the ongoing Epidemic” (D.R.on.E) is a tool that can be used to help the users in the decision-making processes by gathering a lot of information coming from the literature and linking them with evidence based data. In fact, D.R.on.E, allowing both a top-down consultation and a bottom-up browsing, supports a faster experience: thanks to an hyperlink system, guidelines are complemented by further resources and automatic tools that support customization of the solutions based on the specific case parameters. Furthermore, D.R.on.E includes a pandemic prediction model built on local official data about COVID-19 diffusion, able to estimate the number of hospitalized patients at a certain time. This system helps the user to adopt the most appropriate strategy in order to fill the gap of beds that may be required in the facility in the near future.
The D.R.on.E decision making tool is an all-in-one resource worldwide accessible, which offers all the pieces needed to make the fastest, most efficient and straightforward decisions. This platform would not completely substitute traditional guidelines, but it may support them to be more user-friendly and less time consuming.
In conclusion, the proposed communicative model and the methodology developed to create the D.R.on.E tool for the COVID-19 pandemics, are contributions that may have important impacts on the communicative strategies adopted by the World Health Organization. It would help guidelines step forward by keeping in mind that they are a useful means only when they adapt to the user’s need and resources availability and not vicersa.
Principal Academic Tutor:
Alessandra ZANELLI (Politecnico di Milano)
Academic Tutors:
Andrea BRAMBILLA (Politecnico di Milano)
Carol MONTICELLI (Politecnico di Milano)
Alessandro MORGANTI (Politecnico di Milano)
Salvatore VISCUSO (Politecnico di Milano)
Milan DRAGOLJEVIC (Politecnico di Milano)
Lorenzo MARI (Politecnico di Milano)
Manfredo GUILIZZONI (Politecnico di Milano)
Eliodoro CHIAVAZZO (Politecnico di Torino)
Matteo FASANO (Politecnico di Torino)
Federico BELLA (Politecnico di Torino)
Lucia FAGIOLARI (Politecnico di Torino)
External Tutor:
Anna SILENZI – WHO – Téchne