ABSTRACT
COVID-19 still represents one of the greatest global challenges of the last decades in terms of medical, coordination and management aspects, but also on the societal and economic level. Even after more than two years, the rapidly changing requirements that the emerging variations of the virus call for, show that Austria – as the majority of countries and organizations – is still struggling with a stringent and pertinent management approach. The call for a comprehensive, applicable and interoperable solution portfolio including evidence-based analysis of current processes/structures, tools and infrastructures as well as lessons learned from the current pandemic response, is evident. The enhanced “ROADS to Health”-approach, currently evaluated by national funding agencies, reflects this aim: a holistic solution set aiming at a technologically supported, lessons learned based system for the pandemic management for the future. ROADS focuses on a basis for optimized crisis management for future pandemics/epidemics from a holistic, user-centric perspective. The concrete goal is to create a basis for a technologically supported measure matching to current requirements for decision-makers and critical infrastructures. Thus, interventions or future mitigation measures for the management of a pandemic are matched with concrete and current requirements. This measure matching will build upon the existing "Portfolio of Solutions" (POS) platform developed by AIT. Relevant medical/epidemiological, social, economic and legal fundamentals and different types and characteristics of pandemics/epidemics will also be considered (infection routes, morbidity and mortality risks, affectedness: age, gender ...) as well as various needs, given resources and processes. International lessons learned from the COVID-19 crisis, knowledge and results from merging practical experiences from crisis management feed into a concept design to facilitate and initiate technological support for enhanced future pandemics/epidemics tackling and potentially for other crisis situations. This keynote paper will draft the frame of this model by presenting the underlying background and basis of the ROADS to Health-solution set and open the floor for a wider range of perspectives of optimization in pandemic and crisis management. © 2022 IDIMT. All rights reserved.