Tech without Borders - COVID-19 Critical
Professor John Fraser is a pre-eminent Specialist in ICU and Director of the Critical Care Research Group (CCRG), Australia’s largest translational ICU research group of its kind
Professor Fraser is a global expert on critical care medicine, dedicated to improving outcomes in cardio thoracic intensive care.
Professor Fraser has developed and led the CCRG from nothing in 2004 to one of the largest global collaboratives addressing basic science translation, medicine, animal model studies, clinical trials and the integration of biomedical engineering into clinical care. Specifically, in the heart and lung arena, Fraser would be one of the most prolific publishers globally. As the current President of Asia Pacific ELSO organisation he now leads the largest global collaborative of intensive care management and data during the COVID-19 pandemic (COVID-19 Critical Care Consortium).
COVID-19, an unknown phrase in December 2019 is now the largest global problem, infecting over 10 million patients and changing every aspect of our society - health, innovation, education and business.
With no established protocols for treatment: clinicians are forced to respond to a virus attacking multiple systems in unprecedented ways.
“Even though we cannot fly, our data can – and when it flies together, it can achieve great outcomes”
The Consortium is a global alliance born through an urgent clinical need, including over 335 hospitals and affiliated research facilities in 51 countries. It has built a world-first database consolidating information from pandemic frontlines, including hardest-hit ICUs in Italy, Spain, UK and USA to identify the most effective treatments for critically ill COVID-19 patients.
This project elevates humanity by equipping all intensive care clinicians, with best, up-to-date information to save lives and improve patient outcomes, regardless of nationality or affiliation.
COVID-19 is the biggest challenge facing our global community, with 10 million confirmed cases in 216 countries by end June 2020. (source: WHO)
With no established treatment protocols for COVID-19, this project is aimed at identifying the most effective treatments for critically ill patients.
This disease has a significant toll on:
Patients – who are isolated from friends and family, while fighting a serious illness and facing a high risk of mortality and unknown long-term prognosis
Clinicians and other healthcare workers – who are working long hours under pressure and in PPE, at risk and carrying the disease to their own families
The health care budget with patients admitted to ICU staying longer, at a cost (in Australia) of approx. $4,500 per day.
The overall economy while effective treatments and vaccines are not developed requiring lockdowns and isolation with severe consequences on productivity and economic participation
Broader public morale especially where ICUs are overwhelmed, high mortality rates engender fear and anger at authorities, potential for other health problems to be overlooked and general disruption to community life.
Societal – long term outcome unknown – how many patients will need long term care? how many won’t be able to go back to work? societal changes
This project is using ground-breaking technology and AI to identify the most effective treatments for the most critically ill COVID-19 patients.
The Consortium is a global alliance which includes more than 335 participating hospitals and affiliated research facilities in 51 countries. It has built a world-first database to build an ICU profile consolidating information from the pandemic frontlines, including the hardest-hit intensive care units in Italy, Spain, the UK and the USA to identify the most effective treatments for critically ill COVID-19 patients.
This project elevates humanity by equipping all intensive care clinicians, regardless of nationality or affiliation, with the best and most up-to-date information to save lives and improve outcomes for their patients.
This project will equip all intensive care clinicians, regardless of nationality or affiliation, with the best and most up-to-date information to save lives and improve outcomes for their patients.
It provides a level playing field with the same data being made available free of charge in rich and poor countries.
This project also tracks the long-term progress of patients, empowering governments and healthcare providers to budget and plan more effectively for future outbreaks and ongoing health issues caused by the virus.
Through its partnerships with The University of Queensland and Queensland University of Technology, the Consortium will harness the powers of AI and machine learning to draw insights from the anonymised “big data” as it is compiled and received from ICUs globally.
This project serves humanity and transcends borders and cultures to service the global community ensuring humanity must come before the individual, political or institutional interests. The best way to fight this pandemic is to do so together.
Despite isolation and quarantine, these specialists have come together and built an international community to defeat a virus that respects neither geographical borders nor political allegiances.
SARS-COV-2 crosses time zones and war zones; to defeat it so must we.
- Elevating issues and their projects by building awareness and driving action to solve the most difficult problems of our world
The first-of-a-kind worldwide collaboration to elevate issues and projects by building awareness and driving action to solve one of biggest problems of our world. Using artificial intelligence (AI) and data modelling, it analyses medical information and treatments to create decision support tools that are provided free at the patients’ bedside across the world to guide medical workers to save lives and improve patient outcomes. This is irrespective of their nationality, their geography or whether they can afford it.
Professor Fraser has rallied the global medical community breaking existing barriers, sharing information and collaborating internationally as the world battles this pandemic.
As President of Asia Pacific ELSO, Fraser started to be informed about an outbreak of infection in Wuhan as early as mid-January 2020. His role in Asia Pacific meant he received calls from colleagues and friends in this area asking for advice on how to manage this condition – at that time without a name. The Consortium has grown from a smaller study established by Professor John Fraser, originally intended to track the progress of flu strains across the Asia Pacific. When the World Health Organisation reported in January 2020 that a novel coronavirus had emerged in Wuhan, China, Fraser recognised the architecture of the Australian study had the potential to be expanded to meet what would become an international emergency.
As a clinician-scientist and intensive care doctor, Professor Fraser is passionate about working to provide solutions to manage the largest global problem of our time. It is important for doctors across the world managing critically ill COVID-19 patients to seamlessly share information.
With neither a vaccine for prevention nor established treatment protocols for the treatment of COVID-19 patients, there is an imperative to identify the most effective treatments for critically ill patients so intensive care clinicians are not flying blind.
“Even though we cannot fly, our data can – and when it flies together, it can achieve great outcomes”
This project provides data-driven support for clinical decision-making to all frontline clinicians across the world based on experiences from doctors who are managing the pandemic in some of the worst-hit areas. Over the last 30-years of practice, Professor Fraser is aware of the existing geographic disparities in critical and intensive care. He is motivated by the need to improve delivery of critical care across the world especially in under-resourced settings. This is why the database and information sharing platform developed by the COVID-19 Critical Care Consortium is available at no cost to practicing clinicians at the frontlines managing the pandemic.
Output from the CCRG has been globally impactful in critical care ranging from simple and inexpensive interventions to more complex and resource-intensive innovations.
Over time, Professor Fraser has expanded the scope of CCRG's work to include under-developed parts of the world in Asia, Latin America and Africa. Australia is now ideally positioned to continue to play an ongoing leadership role, having successfully managed to “flatten the curve” domestically.
While others are overwhelmed by COVID-19, or do not have the resources or experience to lead research, Australia does. Now is the time for us to build on this unique alliance, to use it to best equip the world’s hospitals for what may come next: whether that is a second wave of COVID-19, or unexpected long term health issues in patients who have ‘recovered’ from the disease, or potentially an entirely new virus.”
Australia is uniquely positioned to lead this ongoing international effort.
Australia is geographically isolated, enabling quicker and more effective restriction of international movements.
Australia is a stable federation with a history of federal and state governments working together effectively, as has been demonstrated during the first wave of this pandemic
Australia has a first-rate health care system, world-leading clinicians and scientists, and established research capacity.
We are therefore ideally positioned to take a leadership role on the international stage. While others are overwhelmed by COVID-19, or simply do not have the resources or experience to lead research, Australia does.
Professor Fraser has been instrumental in providing support for development of intensive care in low-and-middle income settings across Asia, Latin America and Africa. A good example of his commitment is the help he provided towards improving oxygen delivery to critically ill children in a rural regional referral hospital in Mbale, Eastern Uganda. The Children's Oxygen Administration Strategies (COAST) Trial had faced multiple challenges during the setting up phase prompting Professor Fraser to travel to East Africa to aid in the setting-up of the project. Armed with information of the challenges experienced, Professor Fraser came well prepared for the task. He undertook significant risks, leading the team of collaborators from Kenya, travelling by road at night and crossing the border into Eastern Uganda late at night with an assortment of equipment for the project. Throughout this process, Professor Fraser and the team encountered hostilities including threats at the border crossings but persevered and stayed on until the entire project was well set-up. He brought on board industrial and legal partners who enabled the project to run with minimal input from him, thus providing a new chapter in the delivery of supplemental oxygen to critically unwell children in Africa.
- Other, including part of a larger organization (please explain below)
The Critical Care Research Group (CCRG) is a collaboration of multi-disciplinary researchers from Queensland Health, The Prince Charles Hospital, The University of Queensland, Queensland University of Technology and Griffith University and other collaborators from hospitals and institutions nationally and internationally. The CCRG is based at The Prince Charles Hospital. As Director of CCRG, Professor Fraser now leads the largest global collaborative of intensive care management and data during the COVID-19 pandemic (COVID-19 Critical Care Consortium). The Consortium is a global alliance which includes more than 335 participating hospitals and affiliated research facilities in 51 countries.
The Consortium is a global alliance which includes more than 335 participating hospitals and affiliated research facilities in 51 countries. It has built a world-first database to build an ICU profile consolidating information from the pandemic frontlines, including the hardest-hit intensive care units in Italy, Spain, the UK and the USA to identify the most effective treatments for critically ill COVID-19 patients.
- 3. Good Health and Well-Being
This project is using ground-breaking technology and AI to identify the most effective treatments for the most critically ill COVID-19 patients all around the world.
The Consortium is a global alliance which includes more than 335 participating hospitals and affiliated research facilities in 51 countries. It has built a world-first database to build an ICU profile consolidating information from the pandemic frontlines, including the hardest-hit intensive care units in Italy, Spain, the UK and the USA to identify the most effective treatments for critically ill COVID-19 patients.
This project elevates humanity by equipping all intensive care clinicians, regardless of nationality or affiliation, with the best and most up-to-date information to save lives and improve outcomes for their patients.
The goal is to use ground-breaking technology and AI to identify the most effective treatments for the most critically ill COVID-19 patients and save lives.
Global network of collaborators in hospitals and research institutions across Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Columbia, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Kenya, Korea, India, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, UAE, UK and USA.
Tech Without Borders - COVID -19 Consortium