Multi Purpose Platform for Virtual Care System

在数字卫生技术重大创新的推动下，我们正处于公共卫生保健革命的风口浪尖。一个显著增长的领域，称为虚拟护理，或远程患者护理，有可能永远改变医疗保健行业。根据德勤（The Future of Virtual Health, 2020）的报告，50%的医疗高管预测，在未来20年里，超过四分之一的门诊护理、预防护理和长期护理将转向虚拟交付。主要目标是大幅度减少对传统保健机构（医院、疗养院、长期保健中心）的依赖。特别是在大流行期间，这些设施承受着极大的压力和快速上涨的成本。另一个挑战是患有慢性疾病的老年人和残疾患者数量的显著增加，部分原因是老龄化社会。要应对这一挑战，需要对现有医疗基础设施进行彻底改造，使其更加灵活、成本更低、便于大众使用。由于通信系统、人工智能、云计算和医疗物联网（IoMT）领域的重大进步，现在可以设计低成本、可靠的虚拟医疗平台，使这一不断增长的人口群体受益，并减轻当前医疗系统的很大压力。拟议的计划旨在通过设计多用途虚拟护理平台来促进这些努力，该平台可适应各种远程使用，可以学习和产生通知，并且可以轻松地进行改造以满足最终用户的需求。平台设计应该允许各个护理点之间的无缝互操作性。目标是：1)开发一个综合框架，用于从患者端收集的关键信号的多模态信息融合；2)开发一套预测分析引擎，用于预诊断和发现潜在疾病；3)围绕开放的面向服务的架构构建多功能原型，以测试平台的可扩展性、准确性、隐私性和互操作性。这项研究将推动新型虚拟医疗技术的发展，为过度紧张的医疗保健部门提供具有成本效益的解决方案。设计这样一个平台将给社会带来巨大的好处，因为它将使提供足够的护理服务，而不会给已经紧张的医疗保健系统带来不必要的压力。该项目提供了一个极好的机会，可以帮助塑造加拿大的医疗保健行业，并扩大在人工智能、通信、安全和移动计算等领域的现有优势。它有可能使加拿大处于这一领域技术进步的前沿，同时有助于培训将领导这一关键部门未来发展的高素质人员。

We are on the cusp of a public healthcare revolution, fueled by major innovations in digital health technologies. One area of significant growth, called virtual care, or remote patient care, has the potential of forever transforming the healthcare industry. According to Deloitte (The Future of Virtual Health, 2020), 50% of healthcare executives predict that more than a quarter of all outpatient care, preventive care and long term care would move to virtual delivery in the next two decades. The main goal is to drastically minimize reliance on traditional healthcare institutions (hospitals, nursing homes, long-term health centres). Especially during pandemics, these facilities have been subjected to extreme strain and fast-rising costs. Another challenge is the significant increase in the number of elderly and disabled patients with chronic ailments, partly attributable to an aging society. Meeting this challenge requires a complete revamping of the existing healthcare infrastructure to make it more agile, less costly and easily accessible by the masses. Thanks to significant advances made in the fields of communication systems, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), it is now possible to design low-cost, reliable virtual care platforms that could benefit this ever-increasing segment of the population and relieve much of the strain on current healthcare system. The proposed program is aimed at contributing to these efforts through the design of multi- purpose virtual care platform that is adaptable for a variety of remote uses, can learn and produce notifications, and can be easily retrofitted to suite end-user needs. The platform design should allow for seamless interoperability among various points of care. The objectives are :1) developing a comprehensive framework for multi-modal information fusion of critical signals collected from the patient's end, 2)developing a suite of predictive analytics engines for pre-diagnosis and discovery of potential ailments, 3)building a multi-functional prototype around an open service-oriented architecture, to test the scalability, the accuracy, the privacy and the interoperability of the platform. This research will advance the development of novel virtual care technologies that will provide cost-effective solutions for an overstretched healthcare sector. Designing such a platform will be of tremendous benefit to society because it will enable the delivery of adequate care services without undue pressure on already-strained healthcare systems. The program presents an excellent opportunity to help shaping the Canadian healthcare industry and to expand on existing strengths in sectors such as AI, communications, security, and mobile computing. It has the potential of positioning Canada at the forefront of technology advances in this field while contributing to the training of highly qualified personnel who will lead future advances in this critical sector.