Take the epidemic as an opportunity to build Bosto

Taking the epidemic as an opportunity, Boston built a flexible smart city

Houston, Texas, has 2.3 million residents, and is also one of the cities with the highest level of diversity in the United States. Over the past few decades, Hispanic and Asian immigrants have grown in this metropolis, and African Americans have also established a close community system here. With the support of diversity, Houston's innovation activities are booming and are expected to become one of the leading smart cities in the United States

at the beginning of the outbreak, mayor Sylvester Turner regarded the epidemic as an important opportunity to improve infrastructure. Its smart city plan has also contributed to the prevention and control of the epidemic and the restoration of order in Houston. Recently, the number of confirmed covid-19 surged, and the hospital was overwhelmed. The pre deployed intelligent technology began to quickly follow up and provide valuable assistance to medical institutions

Sylvester Turner, mayor of Houston, Texas

over the past decade, Houston has been promoting innovative measures in smart city construction. The city has implemented strategic investments in artificial intelligence, cloud, edge, intelligent sensors, big data and many other aspects. During the covid-19 epidemic, Houston, with the help of intelligent technology, took the lead in getting rid of the collapse of order and regaining its vitality

mayor Turner said that technology should never be for the sake of technology. We must be clearly aware of our own needs and the set goals we want to achieve. In the traditional paradigm of smart city, we fall into a fixed thinking mode, that is, we can only focus on one field at a time. However, during the epidemic period, we witnessed the common progress of many things in many directions. Only by getting rid of the past monorail system, although the probability of electromechanical appearance is not very high, can we solve more major problems in a short time

unite as one, we will use intelligent technology to enhance the overall flexibility

through the joint cooperation between residents in the community and institutions at all levels, municipal governments, enterprise partners and even non-profit organizations in order to repay the society and new and old customers, the technology will glow with vitality and strong practical application ability. Based on the current practical problems and building the ability to quickly adapt to the environment, each participant will look at the present and evaluate the prospects from a broader perspective

as an important part of the smart city development initiative, Turner also advocates that all parties use real-time data and digital contact tracking technology to quickly identify the epidemic spread within the community, so as to quickly implement policies to curb the spread of infection

Houston also uses the intelligent water resources management program to detect the infection of novel coronavirus to the water supply system through genetic markers. Thus, the municipal authorities can quickly grasp the transmission route and scope of the virus in the community, and effectively prevent the further expansion of the epidemic. Sameer Sharma, general manager of Intel global smart city/transportation, said that we have been cooperating with Houston to provide smart city solutions that focus on the quality of citizens' lives. For example, water lens is one of the participating enterprises in the ion smart and resilient cities accelerator program funded by Intel, which provides genetic testing technology for water resources. The company has signed a pilot program with Houston to quickly test covid-19 virus in wastewater to help determine the real infection rate in the community

virtual ICU, telemedicine and rapid hub jointly contribute to the medical system.

in Houston Methodist Hospital, the number of cases of covid-19 has soared from 230 in April to more than 800 in August. In order to better serve patients, hospitals must find ways to make full use of each existing technology and organize new and more efficient medical use cases

Roberta Schwartz, chief Innovation Officer of Houston Methodist Association, said that under the impact of covid-19 epidemic, every member of the innovation center team is a hero. We examine each original application and think about whether it helps to solve the current practical problems: telemedicine, Microsoft teams, etc. The innovation team has developed rapidly, and now we have even developed a virtual ICU monitoring system. The whole scheme was planned and constructed in two weeks, and the initial operation time was a whole year

Lisa Spelman, vice president and general manager of Intel, said that when we heard the innovative measures of the Houston Methodist Association, we decided to immediately apply our own technical solutions to reduce the difficulty of implementing the virtual patient monitoring solution, and make every effort to protect the health and safety of front-line medical service personnel and ICU patients. Mic sickbay solution relies on Intel technology to improve the nursing efficiency of ICU patients, while effectively protecting the health of front-line doctors and nurses

combining the sickbay platform of medical informatics with Intel edge AI technology and Cisco network technology, the virtual ICU can integrate the real-time data sent back by the bedside monitoring device to ensure that doctors and nurses can monitor the patient's status without entering the ward. They can monitor all ICU patients in the command center, or receive real-time information including vital signs and other patient data through computers or iPads in different locations in the hospital. In this way, the infection rate of nurses and doctors in the hospital can be greatly reduced. From March 16 to May 11 this year, the staff responded to 400 virtual ICU one touch calls and answered 7000 calls from the patient ward

technology plays a vital role in patient care

schwartz said that it all does not start from scratch. We already have reliable infrastructure, but these infrastructure or technical solutions used to only target relatively limited use cases and scenarios. During the epidemic period, patients' demand for medical resources increased exponentially, and we also began to envision promoting the mass application of technology. Before the epidemic, the proportion of visits to our virtual health care program was less than 5%, and now this proportion has increased to 80%

Houston Methodist Hospital is subordinate to the urban hospital alliance. These hospitals, which concentrate a large number of high-quality medical resources, also act as a medical hub to radiate remote areas. Through virtualization technology, experts are expected to bring high-level diagnosis and treatment services to rural patients who are located in remote areas and cannot quickly communicate face-to-face with doctors in the future

using cloud services, the Houston Methodist association can reduce the deployment and implementation costs of intelligent technology, make wise decisions to integrate and expand infrastructure, and ensure that the hospital continues to optimize operating costs

enterprise partnership accelerates the implementation process

with its own smart city construction plan, Houston has established partnerships with Intel, Microsoft and T-Mobile long before the epidemic and often talking with peers about the purchase of material testing machines. After the full outbreak of covid-19, partners began to provide comprehensive resources for hospitals such as the Houston Methodist Church, reducing the adjustment and transformation plans that used to take months or even years to weeks or even days

in this uncertain period, the full cooperation between the public and private sectors will become a necessary prerequisite for achieving flexibility. Houston, with its foresight, is expected to take this opportunity to develop into one of the leading smart cities in the United States. Source: Forbes