icumonitoring.ch: a platform for short-term forecasting of intensive care unit occupancy during the COVID-19 epidemic in Switzerland

• Published in: Swiss medical weekly Vol. 150; no. 1920; p. w20277
• Main Authors: Zhao, Cheng, Tepekule, Burcu, Criscuolo, Nicola G, Wendel Garcia, Pedro D, Hilty, Matthias P, Risc-Icu Consortium Investigators In Switzerland, Fumeaux, Thierry, Van Boeckel, Thomas
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland SMW supporting association (Trägerverein Swiss Medical Weekly SMW) 06.05.2020
• Subjects: Coronavirus Infections - epidemiology; COVID-19; Decision Making, Computer-Assisted; Forecasting - methods; Health Planning - methods; Hospital Bed Capacity - statistics & numerical data; Hospitalization - statistics & numerical data; Hospitalization - trends; Humans; Intensive Care Units; Intensive Care Units - statistics & numerical data; Intensive Care Units - supply & distribution; Models, Theoretical; Pandemics - statistics & numerical data; Patient Admission - statistics & numerical data; Pneumonia, Viral - epidemiology; SEIR model; Shinyapps; Software - standards; Spatial Epidemiology; Switzerland - epidemiology; Ventilators, Mechanical - statistics & numerical data; Ventilators, Mechanical - supply & distribution; Switzerland
• ISSN: 1424-3997; 1424-3997
• DOI: 10.4414/smw.2020.20277

In Switzerland, the COVID-19 epidemic is progressively slowing down owing to "social distancing" measures introduced by the Federal Council on 16 March 2020. However, the gradual ease of these measures may initiate a second epidemic wave, the length and intensity of which are difficult to anticipate. In this context, hospitals must prepare for a potential increase in intensive care unit (ICU) admissions of patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome. Here, we introduce icumonitoring.ch, a platform providing hospital-level projections for ICU occupancy. We combined current data on the number of beds and ventilators with canton-level projections of COVID-19 cases from two S-E-I-R models. We disaggregated epidemic projection in each hospital in Switzerland for the number of COVID-19 cases, hospitalisations, hospitalisations in ICU, and ventilators in use. The platform is updated every 3-4 days and can incorporate projections from other modelling teams to inform decision makers with a range of epidemic scenarios for future hospital occupancy.