The purpose of the project

The purpose of the project “Advanced techniques for epidemic management in the community”, carried out by certSIGN in partnership with the Central Military Emergency University Hospital “Dr. Carol Davila ”, consists in the development of the application“ Coronavirus COVID-19 Romania ”, which will make a map of the spatial distribution of all cases confirmed with SARS-CoV-2, a statistic showing the evolution by days, information related to hospital infrastructure, population density, but also relevant details of each case.

Project beneficiaries

Members of the epidemiological community from the Public Health Directorates and Hospitals who will benefit from the rapid identification of contacts of those infected with COVID-19 and thus will be able to perform epidemiological investigations much easier and will be able to warn and transmit in real time appropriate information to each citizen.

Also, the Ambulance Services and SMURD, the General Inspectorate of Emergency Situations and the County Councils will be able to judiciously manage hospital beds and the resources allocated to them by making decisions adapted to the reality of local, regional and national epidemics.

In turn, hospital managers can be a group of beneficiaries of the proposed solutions, through the undeniable support in the decision-making management of human resources and the provision of protective equipment and in the budgeting of activities specific to the pandemic context.

Last but not least, the citizens will be the main beneficiaries, as they will be warned in real time of the possibility of contamination in a certain area. Given that the infection does not occur instantly, requiring a few minutes for transmission, at the time of notification the user of the mobile application can leave the area to avoid contamination. Thus the proposed solution can effectively contribute to limiting contamination and the number of cases in the community.

The solution that certSIGN has patented and that will be implemented in this project is homomorphic encryption, a method that allows a third party to process and manipulate data in encrypted format, without having access to clear data. In other words, this method allows a server to perform calculations directly on encrypted data without the possibility of decrypting the result and without being able to decrypt the initial data.

Project objectives

• Create a framework for tracking and alerting contacts using mobile device applications that respect data confidentiality

• Development of the map with the distribution of all confirmed cases, depending on various parameters (locality; forms of illness / severity; age group; exposed professional categories)

• Development of a tool for real-time monitoring of available places in hospitals, depending on various parameters (availability of ATI beds; existence of fans; human resources; supply of protective equipment and disinfectants; supply of specific medication, etc.).

Expected results

• SARS-CoV-2 confirmed patient contact detection and warning system using mobile device applications

• Detailed map with real-time distribution of all confirmed cases, depending on specific variables (location; forms of illness / severity, age group; occupational categories exposed)

• Public communication report with quantifiable indicators

• Report on the techniques developed for processing and analyzing the data collected during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic

• Database for monitoring the availability of hospital resources and for diagnostic centers

The necessary funds are provided by the Executive Unit for Financing Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation and amount to 500,000 lei.

The start date of the project is 10.06.2020, and the completion date is 31-05-2021

Project code: PN-III-P2-2.1-SOL-2020-0148

Ctr 16Sol / 2020