Senior respiratory consultants from hospitals across the country, led by Prof Richard Costello, have collaborated on the development and deployment of a new clinical support tool designed to help support healthcare professionals with triage, monitoring, and treatment of coronavirus patients.
ACORRD — which stands for the Assessment of Covid-19 Risk of Respiratory Deterioration — is the result of round-the-clock efforts by clinicians and Dublin-based digital health solutions provider S3 Connected Health, supported by the RCSI and the RCPI.
Following receipt of a derogation from the HPRA and the Department of Health, ACORRD reached doctors at Beaumont Hospital, which has the largest cohort of Covid-19 patients in Ireland. Three more major hospitals are currently using ACORRD, with over 100 clinicians piloting the use of the solution on over 1,000 patients.
Following a successful review of the clinical benefits of the solution by the HSE, ACORRD is now being rolled-out to hospitals across the Irish healthcare system.
Prof Costello, senior respiratory consultant at Beaumont Hospital and lead clinician on the ACORRD project, commented: “Ireland’s hospitals are working tirelessly and doing a stellar job at looking after coronavirus patients. However, with the number of cases rapidly increasing, we urgently needed to find a solution which enabled our hospital teams to cope with this crisis by optimising and scaling acute respiratory care delivery for all affected patients. And with additional clinical staff being pulled in from other departments to boost our respiratory care teams, we also needed something to provide clinicians less experienced in this area with the critical knowledge and decision support to care for patients.”
The solution — which enables clinicians to quickly and appropriately triage Covid-19 patients using the web-based application on their smartphone — defines a novel measure of patient status called the Covid Critical Care Index (CCCI), and helps determine the best course of treatment based on:
The mode of oxygen delivery.
Key patient vitals, including respiratory rate and oxygen saturation levels.
CCCI assessments are repeated on an ongoing basis, enabling ACORRD to visualise trends, track disease progression, assist in the early identification of patient deterioration, and provide timely advice to the care team on the appropriate clinical considerations.
Mr Fran Thompson, Chief Information Officer, HSE, commented: “Delivering digitally-enabled, safe healthcare is a key part of our Covid response. The HSE is committed to collaborating with all partners in healthcare to improve patient clinical outcome and experience. The ability to manage and support clinical workflow with a digitally-enabled process is crucial to creating a modern health service.”
