Tenaris : Data scientists from Tenaris’s mill in Italy help to develop COVID-19 database and web app

PUBLISHED ON 05/12/2020

Two employees of Tenaris's seamless mill in Dalmine volunteered their time to help in the development of a comprehensive database of COVID-19 patients and an associated web application for the Papa Giovanni XXIII Hospital in Bergamo, Italy. Vincenzo Manzoni, Tenaris Data Science Director, and his colleague Senior Data Engineer Andrea Rota joined the team of medical professionals, engineers and other scientists who wanted to create a tool that would put data in service of doctors treating critically ill patients.

'The goal of the project is to provide doctors with quick answers to clinical questions that would help them to evaluate the effectiveness of treatments and therapies,' explains Manzoni. 'This requires speed, technical skills and a good dose of creativity.'

The project began with a Facebook post by Fabio Previdi, full professor at the University of Bergamo and director of the Control Systems and Automation Laboratory. In the post, Previdi asked thesis students for assistance with the collection and analysis of data on COVID-19 patients in the intensive care unit of the local hospital. The resulting database is unique in terms of its size and level of detail.

'As soon as I heard about this challenge, I pushed to participate, ' shares Rota who specializes in the extraction and processing of data from IT systems. 'This is my field, inside and outside of Tenaris, and I felt that I could make a meaningful contribution.'

While Rota worked on software that automatically extracted and processed information from ICUs, Manzoni helped to develop a COVAID web application that combined structured data with patient's medical records to create a comprehensive clinical picture. Both the extraction software and the app have built-in privacy protections for patients.

Manzoni and Rota took part in the project through private initiative, but their efforts complemented the structured action plans developed and implemented by Tenaris in partnership with local communities around the world, including Italy.

To learn about Tenaris's management plan to address the COVID-19 crisis, please visit https://www.tenaris.com/en/covid19/

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