Clinical data transmission in intensive care unit: what have we learned from COVID-19?

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic, besides stimulating new integrated assistance systems 1, has altered the clinical approach in I.C.U., the management of medical information, and the methods of communication between doctors and family members. The transmission of news between the hospital and the family was ensured via a multimedia network, replacing the understanding between doctor and family established with de visu meetings. The pandemic emergency has forced healthcare professionals to adopt this new method of communication, exposing the doctor to a series of critical issues related to the transmission of sensitive data. A review of the scientific literature underlines that not many articles deal with regulations and issues related to the processing of health data in the COVID period; however, there are many challenges such as security risks, privacy, ethical and process standardization issues. We believe that this topic should be the subject of an urgent debate, deepening the matter with a specific medico-legal background.

Keywords

• COVID-19
• communication
• intensive care
• telemedicine